Ghosts of Eden
by Saffronica612
Summary: AU self-contained novella. Same characters, different names, different setting. The year is 2030, and San Francisco's brightest teens are invited by Adrian Branson up to his new space station, the Eden. Unfortunately, things don't go quite as planned. JxB
1. Chapter 1

Ghosts of Eden.

The following is an AU adaption of Infinite Ryvius which takes place approximately modern day (2030); setting, some character names, and certain character relations have changed quite a bit, but the general story remains preserved. This was originally a game played at Wayfinder written by Ben Schwartz, and I have merely typed up my version of it. So it's doubly not my story.

Disclaimer: The following story is for enjoyment purposed only. I do not own the characters, the setting, or really anything. And I'm not making any money off of it. No affiliation with Virgin Galactic either.

* * *

Not many people have goals like "Take over a space station." But Aaron Blue, leader of the Marines, wasn't normal.

Blue was a dangerous man. Smart, charismatic, and completely ruthless. A powerful personality, an unparalleled ambition. Eighteen and fearless, and described by his enemies as a tad egomaniacal. His enemies, however, didn't often last too long. The Marines were the kind of gang where you crossed them, and you would turn up dead. Then your family would, then a few of your friends, for good measure.

That was Blue.

And even better, as the son of Oakland Chief of Police Kieran Blue, as he was polite and soft-spoken in public, a good student at Berkeley High, no one would ever suspect him of brutal killings or other unsightly activity. He was just another student. Technically. He cut all his classes and passed them out of sheer brilliance. But that was all just a well-crafted illusion.

The Marines were a quiet gang. They didn't care about drug wars, or drive-by killings. No prostitutes. Sure, they controlled the streets, but really, they were after bigger fish. They infiltrated important places, blackmailed powerful people, stole very valuable things.

Like now. Blue had set his sights on the greatest prize yet: turning this space station into his own private kingdom. And what Blue wanted, Blue got.

He glanced one last time at his gang-Seth, Eric, Michelle, Tim Andrews, Stefan, Morgan with Deckard and the rest of her muscle, and, of course, Sierra Cay. They were valuable assets, all of them, so he made sure he took care of them, protected them, treated them decently. Well, Sierra was more than an asset. She was his best friend and sometimes-lover. Even though his heart lay elsewhere.

But he had other things to worry about. Like making sure that the four new kids integrated properly in his gang. Sierra seemed to like them; she had been hanging out with Morgan a lot. The others hadn't bothered on commenting. So it would work. It had to. There could be no internal strife if they were actually going to pull off snatching Virgin Galactic's jewel from right under their noses.

And right now, his plan depended on the wile and cunning of fifteen-year-old Michelle Cay.

She had been stringing some Zwei sucker along for months online, convinced him to open up the back door of the ship for them. Now he was meeting them-well, her, as he didn't know that she was bringing the gang along, too-well, he was in for a nasty surprise.

Michelle glanced back at her sister for support, then rapped three times in quick succession on the hanger door. Behind her, the Marines smiled encouragingly. This was what she wanted, she told herself. Joining a gang. Being just like her sister. Her idol. The most badass awesome person in the universe.

And it had been easy enough to strike up a relationship with her old friend who lived next door, who was off being some big-shot pilot cadet in Singapore. She had strung him along for months, flirting online, until she managed to get the whole gang a free ticket to space. Blue was very impressed. Her sister was proud of her. It all seemed perfect.

The one eensy teensy catch was that she sort of fell for Charlie for real. He was nice, and kind, and he seemed to genuinely like her for her. And it was just‚ the look on his face. When he saw her. It melted her heart.

Of course, his shift in expression when he caught sight of the rest of the gang brought her definition of "guilty" to a whole new level.

And falling for some loser kid like Charlie? The gang couldn't know. Her sister couldn't know. She needed to be badass. She needed to be strong. So she decided to do the mature thing, the next time she caught him alone, and kill him. That would be the ...not the *right* thing, but the badass thing. And she just wanted to be badass, like her sister. So she would kill the kid. Not that she knew if she could do it, to be honest.

Oh, god. Who knew joining a gang would be this hard?

* * *

Julia Habana fussed with her uniform-a brand new red silk tunic underneath a perfectly tailored grey stripe suit jacket, her skirt, her blue scarf (her favorite color) thrown in just the way she had always imagined of those first aviators, the angel-winged necklace...

She fingered the angel-winged necklace guiltily. It represented flight, freedom, and the blue stone tucked inside of it reminded her of...well...

Lucas had bought it for her. For their six-month anniversary. She had asked him not to, but when Lucas got an idea in his mind...

Now was not the time to be thinking of Lucas, she chastised herself. She was going to be going into space. Leaving the planet behind, creating a whole new world. Eden. Virgin Galactic's brainchild, the next step for humanity, and she, a seventeen-year-old ace pilot, was going to be one of the first to step on it.

Well, she would have to share her moment with a bunch of other high schoolers. The best of their respective schools, but still...the College Preparatory School, CPS, was fairly respectable; its only problem was that it wasn't Zwei. She had some friends who went there, like Amy, the girl who knew everyone and invited them all over for tea. Berkely High was big enough to be filled with some fairly smart and interesting people, like Drake, a hacker friend of hers, and Conor, a good friend of his who would talk to her about theoretical physics and advanced nanotechnology, using the wrong terms to boot. He was a strange one, quite shy, but they had bonded after she mentioned how much she wanted to get off the planet, get into space. Since then they had been having quite a few discussions about groundbreaking physics over the Nets. She liked him, although she couldn't really figure him out. Ah well. At least he was more normal than his sister.

San Francisco Tech were also represented here, standing in the teleporter right behind the Zwei kids. One of her technical friends, Simon Rutan, went there. She had flown some test flights for him to get to try out inventions of his in different pressure, zero g, mostly because she just liked flying and he needed a pilot daredevil enough to agree to take him up. Besides, what with her tuition tightness, all the little odd jobs paid.

SOTA, the School Of The Arts, was to the far side of the room. Julia was vaguely familiar with it, as she tried to keep up with the rising talents of various actors and singers. She had been to some plays directed by Jay Brice, and had told the flamboyant and friendly chaperone how much she had enjoyed his work. She could appreciate the arts, despite her inclination towards science and technology.

And then, of course, there were the Oudeterrans. The strange sect of Christianity against having children because of overpopulation problems. They seemed more like a cult than anything else, really. Kara and her family had just converted, and Charlie had been quietly Oudeterran for a while. Really, she wouldn't care too much about them if the recent spree of Oudeterran murders hadn't included Asa.

She noticed that Apollo Asphodel and his daughters were on the ship. Normally, she would go and introduce herself-she liked having connections with powerful people (she had tried to email Adrian Branson, but had only gotten an automatic response to contact his secretary, so instead, she decided to introduce herself and become friends with his son, Tate. Other notable exploits included a long email conversation she had started with Griffin Simpson, Prime Minister and Supreme Ruler of Canada, but that was another story entirely)-but she didn't want to get involved in any creepy cult-y religion stuff. Not that she knew enough to judge it as a cult. It just struck her as strange.

And then, of course, there were the inmates. The kids in juvie who were, for some reason, also invited. They were standing right behind her and-

Julia's blood froze. Asa. He was there.

She glanced across the seat, but Mckenzie hadn't noticed him yet.

"Lucas," she hissed.

"I see," he whispered back.

"So, Mckenzie, how are you?" she said, making eye contact with the girl. Look at me, look at me.

"Good, I suppose..."

"We're in space! Come on! What could be better?" Internally, Julia winced. She had never really cared to make small talk.

"It's just..."

"I know. But we're off the planet, so leave that all behind."

"He's gone," Lucas whispered in her ear. It only took a glance to see that the juvie kids had left for some other part of the teleportation room.

Crisis averted. Mckenzie and Asa had been dating, and they had been the sweetest couple. He asked her out when they were together on top of a Ferris Wheel, watching the sunset. They had been storybook perfect.

Which, of course, meant that something was going to go horrible wrong.

And that it did. Six months ago, Asa had murdered Kellen Adams' father in a spree of Oudeterran murders. And Adams was not only dating Drake, but was also Mckenzie's best friend. And in love with Mckenzie. Obviously enough to provide a solid motive for Asa. She testified about him bullying her, about a myriad of little details. And what with the rest of the evidence...

Well, neither her nor her classmates believed that Asa really did it. Heigar could fake more evidence than had been used against him in the trial. But there was a bloody knife at his house and plans on his Device, so he was expelled and locked away. And Mckenzie had been a complete mess the whole semester. She did not need to know that for some reason, he was on the ship too.

Suddenly, a hand slammed into her back. She whirled around to see the San Fran Tech kids playing a game of ninja. Lucas's hackles had already begun raising, she could see, so she yanked him back around.

"So. Eden," she said. "Are you all excited?"

"There's a good possibility that one of us might end up flying the thing," Heigar said. "I mean, look at us. We're all wearing the Virgin colors already."

Julia couldn't help but smile at that. They were all guaranteed top jobs pretty much anywhere upon graduation. They were the pilots of the future. And many of them would probably end up flying Virgin's spacecrafts.

"We're the Virgin group," Kara said.

"Yup. All virgins here!"

"Well, actually..." Julia glanced around at all of them. Kara hero worshiped Captain Alec Sparks, their celebrity teacher for their semester abroad in Singapore. Which had led to her sleeping with him. Mckenzie had hooked up with Asa, Heigar and Charlie had each had their own exploits. And of course, she and Lucas. And Aaron, a voice in the back of her mind added. But she didn't want to think about Aaron. She hadn't heard from him since she'd been in Singapore...and...well...they had never really spoken anyways.

"I'm fairly sure that Pat is the only one who is really a virgin here," she said.

Everyone looked at little Pat Sparks and laughed. Captain Sparks just shook his head. "Look, kids, keep it to yourself and I won't bother with reporting anything."

Julia smiled the shark-tooth grin of a girl who knows she's right. "Only Zwei kids can deal with Zwei relationships."

"Oh, quit your Zweining."

That brought a whole round of giggles to the group. "Good one, sir," Charlie said.

"But...but Zwei?" Pat said. It earned a few chuckles.

"Oh, shut up," Lucas barked.

"Lucas!" Julia chastised, wrapping her fingers around his shoulder. "Come on now. Be nice!"

"Why should I? It was a stupid and overused pun, and-"

"It never hurts to pretend-"

"Oh, oh really now?"

Julia winced. She had hit a nerve. She had hit a big nerve. "It's not like that," she protested.

"Oh. Oh really?"

"I'm happy, I really am. And you're happy. We said we were going to make this work." She shot him a look. It seemed like they had this fight every day.

"Fine," he said.

"Come on, don't spoil it. We're finally going to be living in space!" she said. She wrapped her arm around him, trying to calm him down. He sighed and nodded.

She hadn't always been this clingy. He hadn't always been this angry. They had been friends once. Best of friends.

It started with her induction into Zwei Academy. She had been such a hopeful freshman-getting in, getting in on scholarship to the best school in the world, despite what her parents said. She had been such a ball of idealistic excitement and energy in orientation, and everyone was supposed to introduce one another. She had been talking with a nice kid, a boy, tall, dashing, sweeping blonde hair, intelligent eyes, but a sort of a hunch, like he lacked the confidence to stand at his full height. Lucas.

Then the person sitting next to him introduced him as Alexandra Sorren's son.

She had stood up at this, protested, "He's his own person! He's got a name! And it's Lucas!"

And Lucas looked at her with such an expression...

Well.

They became friends. Best of friends, but only friends. They would argue about everything, from the politics of the South East Asian Protectorate to favorite authors (she loved pretty much everything Schwartz, especially his ongoing series of Schism, but he preferred more old-school, with Neil Gaiman.) She was the only person who would argue with him, who would treat him like a person.

She should have seen it coming. It was inevitable. She was smart, she was fairly attractive, and he felt like she was the only person who actually knew him.

He fell brutally in love with her.

And she didn't reciprocate a single bit.

And now despite how good of an actress she was, the strain was starting to show. He had sort of picked up on it. And they both had ways of dealing with their new Zwei relationship-he exploded at everything, she began clinging to him like a vine. And she hated it. She hated what she was doing to him, what it was doing to herself.

But she had to. So she didn't regret it.

Tim Andrews checked his Device one more time. Despite the fact that he had never come into contact with any sort of technology like the teleporters before, they had been relatively simple to hack. And Blue had asked him to hack them, make sure that they would work. What Blue said, he did. He had been that awkward creepy hacker kid in the back of the class, the one publicly humiliated, miserable, alone, liked by no one. His temper didn't help things out, either. Most people just didn't understand him, so he kept to himself.

Until Blue had found him, and made him someone. It was odd jobs-hacking things, making sure court cases went smoothly, clearing criminal records. Nothing too difficult. The teleporter had been the hardest job yet, but hey, he was just that good.

Even better, while in the process of reading the code, it was simple enough to figure out which code corresponded to which people. And it would be so simple to delete them. And thus a brilliant idea hit Tim Andrews: Blue wanted to take over the station, and he could pave the way for him. He rigged it so that upon arrival, none of the chaperones will get the jump-start from the teleporter that will prong their post-teleport selves back to life.

As soon as they arrived at the station, every adult with them was going to die. He grinned. It was perfect.

He glanced back one more time. He hadn't told Blue yet. It was going to be a surprise. Such a great surprise. He couldn't wait.

Captain Alec Sparks looked around. All of the students were here, so it was time to-"Alright. Everyone, please step in your teleportation squared. Zwei kids, pop quiz. I need you to synchronize the teleporters, dock the ship to the side of the station, then set the autopilot plotting a course back to the spaceport in Singapore. Got it?"

They all nodded, then broke up, Charlie heading to the navigation stat in the front of the room, Lucas and Mckenzie to the wheel, and Kara to check systems. Julia meanwhile took out her Device, checked the frequency of the program for the teleporters-mind you, technology that none of them had been aware existed until a week ago-and proceeded to head to each teleporter, synchronizing it. She didn't bother to make eye contact with any of the students, except to remind them to keep their arms and legs inside the platform if they wanted to remain whole. She didn't know how the teleporters worked, so she figured it never hurt to be extra careful.

When she had finally assured that all of the teleporters were on the right wavelength, she headed back up to the cockpit in front. Passing Charlie in navigation, she glanced over her shoulder and corrected a few coordinates. "More efficient," she explained.

"Of course. Thank you," he said.

She glanced across to Kara. "Got everything?"

Kara nodded. "Double-checked."

Then she took her place in the cockpit next to Lucas. "We already did everything," he growled.

"Well, good for you," she said as she held the ship steady. Virgin docks were extremely well-designed, and thus quite easy to park beside.

"Alright! All ready!" she reported to Captain Sparks.

"You got the autopilot?"

"Yup."

"Then everyone to the teleporters as the countdown begins!"

They made their way in a perfect Zwei line to their own positions in the teleporters, grinning aloofly. Why shouldn't they be proud? They had just docked a spaceship perfectly, and were about to meet Adrian Branson and live on his new space station for the week of their lives.

Nothing could spoil this, Julia thought.

"Eight, seven six, five-"

Suddenly, a group of people burst into the room, too fast for anyone to react. Pointing guns around, they leapt into the empty teleporters. But, of course, no one could go out and stop them, or it would distribute the teleportation process.

"Three, two, one!"

The whole world blurred and swayed, and suddenly, they were in a very similar-looking teleportation bay, in the Eden.

Captain Alec Spark's body fell to the ground, limp.

There were screams from all around as all of the chaperones-every single adult on the ship-fell down, the appearance of stone-cold dead.

But they couldn't be dead. They couldn't. Julia quickly knelt beside Sparks, trying to examine him. It was cold on the Eden, too-too cold for her to properly tell anything. Heigar knelt down beside her, shaking Sparks.

"Is he dead?" he asked.

"Can't tell. Might be some strange teleportation technology failure," Julia replied.

"But why? And how?"

"Maybe it targeted everyone above eighteen?"

"I'm eighteen."

"I genuinely don't know." She glanced around. Charlie was sobbing about something along the lines of it was all his fault. Many of the other students, besides screaming or shaking their chaperones, had gathered around the newcomers. One of the fired a shot, and everyone stepped back and fell silent.

"Our presence may come as a bit of a surprise," the handsome young leader of the troops began.

"You can say that again," Julia whispered. She was caught between staring at him and wondering what to do with Sparks's body, which she was still kneeling beside.

"We live in a world of greed and corruption. Megacorporations control vast fortunes, while people are starving. We need a fresh start, a life away from all of this. The Planet Earth has already been taken, divided, bought and sold. We're not going to wrest it away from them. But Eden does give us the potential to create a new society. A society of freedom, away from all of this."

"What about our teachers? What did they do to you?" one of the kids shouted.

"I'm not sure what happened to your teachers. The teleporters are Virgin technology. I can't vouch for their safety. You need to ask the scientists who created them. I'm really sorry, but we're here to create a better world."

"With guns?" another kid yelled out. "Doesn't sound like much of a utopia to me."

"As soon as we're safe and in control, the guns can go away. But right now, we need to ensure that there is no panic, and that everything transitions smoothly. Now please, we are not here to harm you, but stay out of our way." Then they all ran off into the darkness.

Julia let out a low breath. Machiavellian-she could admire that. Most idealists weren't okay with little things like guns, especially when they were potentially firing at innocent high school students. So yeah, she really admired it. Idealism combined with pragmatism, and an idea just crazy enough to work. And besides, Blue, leader of a group of freedom fighters? How romantic.

Not that she should be thinking about Blue at all. There were bodies lying on the ground, and as a student with medical training, she should be able to-

"They're all dead!" someone shouted at her. One of the Berkely High kids. Kellen Adams.

Julia just shook her head. "They can't be. It's too soon to tell. We don't know anything about the technology."

"I'm a medical student and they're not breathing. Listen to me, they are all dead!"

Julia ignored the girl, searching instead for a sign that Adams had been wrong. Finally, she managed to get her finger on the point in which there should have been a pulse. Should have been. Because there was none.

Desperately, she looked around. "We need to get him to a medical bay! I don't know what the teleporters did to him! This is beyond my realm of knowledge. We need...we need..."

Lucas swiftly came over to her side, and helped her hoist the body up. Heigar took the feet. Sparks was heavy, and although they were all in good shape (one's body had to be in prime condition to deal with more extreme G's associated with some of the flight stunts they would pull) none of them were athletic. Or muscular.

Most of the students had already headed downhill, looking for shelter. The air was freezing-sub-zero temperatures-and only dropping. But outside of the pavilion with the teleporters...

It was beautiful.

The grass crunched underfoot, huge evergreen trees towering off in the distance, and the stars were the clearest she had ever seen them. No smog, no light pollution, no atmospheric blur, just pure, vivid lights sprinkled across across the velvet horizon. It was almost as if the glass ceiling didn't exist, like they were standing in the sky. The whole station was silent, but for the fading shouts of the teens below and rushing water off to their left.

"Come on, we have to hurry," Julia whispered. The others were already out of sight.

They made their way across the field in relative silence, every so often stopping to re-hoist the body. Down a hill, there were some buildings off to the left-

And another group of people. The armed leader and two of his friends. And this time, Julia had no one to hide behind. They came right up to the Zwei kids, shining flashlights at them. Up close, it was no mistake. There was no denying it.

Aaron Blue.

Aaron Blue was taking over Virgin Galactin's space station. And Julia Habana's two worlds had just collided in the most unexpected way possible.

"Julia? You're here?" Blue asked, genuine surprise written across his face.

"Yes. I was invited." It came out a bit sharp. She bit her lip. "It's a publicity stunt, Branson pulled a whole bunch of high schoolers to be the first in his new world. But it seems abandoned. And the chaperones at the teleporters. Do you know what's going on?"

He shook his head. "This place is messed up. I had nothing to do with that."

"Alright. Well." She stared at him awkwardly. Now that she could talk to him‚Ä¶they‚Ä¶they had never really *spoken.* Besides, shouldering a dead body could put a wrench in anyone's conversation.

"Do you have any idea where the medical bay is? We have to get him some professional attention," she said.

"There are some buildings down there. I really don't know." He made as if to move past them.

"Wait! Where can I find you?" Julia asked, hoping that he wouldn't hear the note of desperation in her voice.

"Just‚ around," he said. "Stay safe."

"You too," she said. Then he moved on back towards the forest, and she and the Zwei kids continued towards the buildings.

"What was that?" Heigar asked.

"What was what?" Julia snapped.

"Do you know him?"

"Come on. We're almost here." There were a few steps, then they hoisted Sparks inside through the door. A few of the other students from the other schools mingled here, and turned to look, but most of the commotion seemed to be coming from a room to the side.

Lucas and Heigar let go of the body, and Sparks dropped into the middle of the floor. There were no adults here-no medical bay-and she didn't have the time. She knelt down again, positioned her hands on his ribs, began pumping down. CPR. It had to work. He had to start breathing again. He had to.

"Daddy! Where's my father?"

She glanced to the right, only to see Pat bursting through the door.

"Kara, get the kid out of here!" she shouted. She turned back to trying to force air into her mentor's lungs. "He doesn't have to see this," she added under her breath. "He shouldn't have to see this."

"Julia, he's dead," Heigar said, pulling her back.

"No!" she cried, but she didn't fight him. Dead. She had never seen anyone die before. Not anyone she knew. He wouldn't wake up, wouldn't laugh, wouldn't hug his son, wouldn't fly, wouldn't dream, wouldn't-

Then the floor opened and his body disappeared.

Julia screamed, and clawed at the walls. Heigar and Lucas looked suitably disturbed.

"Let's get out of here," Lucas said.

"Don't let go of the walls," Julia said. "The floor is eating people. The floor is eating people. No one is safe."

"It's...some sort of organic disposal system," Kara said. "You're alive, so it should register you."

"Should," Julia said. She wanted to curl up in a corner and cry.

But she couldn't. She had to find out what was going on.

So she continued into the next room, the one with the rest of the students. She made very sure to never let go of the walls.

Inside the control room, one huge wall was covered in the screen of a computer, with a single mouse and keyboard on a pedestal. It showed a map of the station, and system analysis. Heat systems and oxygen were down, and everyone was shouting for attention.

Meanwhile, the clock ticked. 54 minutes, then they all suffocated.

Julia chocked down a sob. She wanted to live in space, not die there.

* * *

Aphrodite Asphodel glanced around at all of the panicking kids, and smiled. Of course Eden was going down.

She was making it.

This entire trip had been her idea. She had whispered the words in her father's ears: Eden was an abomination. The stars were glorious, they were perfect, they were God's creation, and to allow them to be tarnished with the plague of humanity would be absurd.

And she was the one pulling all the strings. Her father was wrapped around her little finger. In the beginning, she may have honestly believed the Oudeterran message-that humanity needed to stop expanding, stop having babies-but any semblance of actual religious belief had been long forgotten, replaced by a terrifying and ruthless ambition.

Not that anyone would suspect her. She was all smiles, quite pleasant, if a bit reserved. Always obliging and willing to talk to people. And with her two sisters-Artemis, whom she encouraged to indulge in her more‚Ä¶bloody‚Ä¶habits, to use as a hitman on anyone who threatened her father's rule, and Athena, the younger, whom she used to pacify others. Keep them from suspecting.

It had been easy enough to get a virus into the computer system. So every time these kids thought they would fix something, they would discover that something else was broken. The next things out would be communications and positioning. They should be set to crash into Shanghai, which was a major population center in China. Killing three birds in one stone, and a lot of excess people, to boot.

The Oudeterrans were here for one, simple reason: to destroy Eden, because Aphrodite Asphodel said so.

And they were making it happen. Now it was only a question of waiting, and killing anyone stupid enough to try to interfere.

* * *

Jeff Bell walked into the control room. A few people looked at the door strangely, but all in all, they ignored him completely.

He was fairly certain that they couldn't see him.

He was fairly certain that he was dead.

So why was he walking around, could see things, hear things, and think? That wasn't what happened when you were dead, was it? So he wasn't completely sure. It was a bit of a tricky situation, see.

He had built this whole fantastic space station. The Eden. It was his masterpiece. He made a fortune in Virgin Galactic, and was good friends with the Bransons, to boot. Adrian had supplied him with weird pieces of technology, and strange ideas. Jeff still wasn't quite sure where they came from, or how they worked. But they came together, and built a dream space station.

He had been looking forward to bringing his daughters up here, and showing them. Saffron and Pheobe. His little singer and poet. And he could see them, too-but they couldn't see him.

Was this what being a ghost felt like?

A ghost of Eden. What a quaint idea.

Something had happened, and then something went down with Adrian and his wife Evyna, and he had just sort of been wandering Eden since then.

Not alone, either.

No, there was another‚...ghost‚...who called himself Liebe. Jeff couldn't figure who he was-a part of his own personality split off from him? It was all so strange.

He glanced one more time mournfully at his daughters. He just wanted to hold them, but he could only watch.

* * *

It took a few moments, but Julia was able to get ahold of herself. This was a crisis, and emotional response was superfluous. Right now, she needed a cool head.

She glanced at the map, with the flashing lights. Everything seemed to be taken care of in the control room. She didn't have enough knowledge of computers to hack the doors, or of mechanics to fix the actual systems. She could read the map, sure, but there were a lot of other kids that could. She wasn't being of any help. So she could go out and pursue her own interests. Find out what was going on.

Fine someone.

Blue.

She had met him-well, seen him, really, two years ago. Her sophomore year. She was walking home from the bus stop and she heard a little noise and she turned, and there he was, bleeding out in an alleyway. Something made her stop instead of just anonymously calling 911 then leaving. Perhaps the way he looked at her-a mixture of relief, longing, and pleading.

"I'm calling a hospital," she informed him, taking out her Device.

Fear flashed through those eyes of his, but his voice was completely steady. "You can't."

"Why not?"

"You just can't. It would be worse. No one can find me. Please, you can't call a hospital."

And, of course, being young and naive, prideful of her own abilities, and with a rebellious streak of her own, she asked him, "Do you think you can walk another four blocks, if I help you?" At his blank stare, she explicated, "I've been taking courses in advanced nanotechnology healing. I've got the equipment and the knowledge. You're going to die within a day or two if you don't get some serious help. And I can give you that help."

Silently, he stood. She hoisted his arm around her shoulder, and acting as his crutch, they continued the few blocks down to her place.

It was easy enough to smuggle him into the house-her parents weren't even home, they didn't care. Easy enough to bandage him up, to steal some nanotech from school and properly heal him.

Even with two stab wounds in his chest, she could tell he was attractive. Extremely attractive. High cheekbones, deep brown eyes, sculpted body, black-blue hair that hung over his headband. He was gorgeous. But he wouldn't say a word. Not about his background, not about what had happened to him. So she didn't push.

Three weeks passed. The wounds healed near perfectly-more to luck than to her own skill. And one day when she returned he was sitting up fine all by himself.

He didn't need her anymore.

There was a sort of awkward moment where he stared at her, and she stared back.

"My name is Aaron Blue," he said.

"Julia Habana," she replied.

Then slowly, he leaned forward and kissed her.

And she kissed him back.

And things just went on from there.

And when she woke up the next morning, he was gone.

But a few months later, he showed up again in her room at night. They spent the night together near-wordlessly, and the next morning, he was gone.

It kept happening, too. Becoming a pattern. He would show up, and they would explore their strange whatever it was without words. He never thanked her. He never said anything about himself, about anything. But there definitely was something between them, something more ineffable, and bond-

Love.

Even the word itself scared her.

Because Julia was smart. She was introspective. She knew herself. And she could tell that she was falling hard for this strange, mysterious boy.

Sometimes he showed up with new scars. Sometimes he showed up with new wounds, and she patched him up. She never knew when he was going to appear. She never knew anything about him. It wouldn't have been that difficult to find out, but she had wanted to respect his privacy. Besides, he had seemed so cagey.

And she was scared to destroy whatever fragile...thing...they had between them. She loved him, and...

and she didn't know what to do about it.

But as of right now, she could just find him, and figure out what was going on. What they were doing here. Why they had guns.

* * *

Everyone was shouting. Everyone was crowding around the keyboard. A good number of people were simply acting hysterical, crying in the corner, screaming about how they were all going to die.

It was vaguely like Lord of the Flies. In a space station. With less than 50 minutes of oxygen remaining.

And Drake Alvarado was tired of their pathetic noise.

He was smarter than them. More mature than them. Just generally better than them on every metric. Knowing that made it rather hard to deal with them, in general. Now was no exception.

"Them," of course, referred to just about every else.

He was a genius programmer, and brilliant enough at everything that he could be openly disdainful of everyone else, and no one could complain. Well, if they did complain, he wouldn't listen. Who cares about their stupid whining anyways? He programmed circles around every single computer teacher he'd ever had, and had taught himself everything he knew, to boot.

His idiot little brother wasn't making things easier, going around, trying to be helpful, hanging out with his stupid little girlfriend. Didn't the kid know he was only getting in the way?

Someone in the corner started sobbing. He groaned. The noise was giving him a headache. No one was getting anything done, and they were all just being idiots.

"Everyone SHUT THE FUCK UP!" he roared.

And the something rather surprising happened.

They did.

Everyone silenced themselves and turned to him.

Well, that was nice for a change. "Listen to me. Everyone step away from the keyboard. No one touch it. I know programming, so I'll examine it."

They obeyed.

"Okay. This is a closed system. The setup is rather simple-it monitors and synchronizes the various systems on the ship. Right now, heating and oxygen is down. I need one team to search for toolboxes, and another team to head to heat systems, and life support. Once you fix the system, it should generate a code, which we impute into the central computer to re-synchronize the system. If you do not have mechanical or programming skill, try to calm down, and wait inside. There were seats out there in the cafeteria."

One of the SOTA kids, with a tutu and curly hair, raised her hand. "My father works here. He built this place. He'll know what to do."

A few other people called out suggestions. But it was a lot more organized. The CPS kids went to find some tools. Tech kids headed for life support, which was everyone's priority. Drake stayed at the keyboard, tracking everyone's progress, directing everyone, keeping order.

He had become a sci-fi action hero, and was rather pleased with himself. Not that this was too different than his general state of mind.

A few of the kids seemed somewhat annoyed by his seizure of power; his brother began whining something about "How come you get to take over and be in charge? You're so egocentric?"

Drake grinned fiercely. "I'm not egocentric, I'm just smarter than you.


	2. Chapter 2

Woop de do, chapter 2!

Still don't own or anything, just for my own fun.

* * *

Astrid the intern shivered, and glanced at the engineering room doors again. Safely barricaded. The heating systems were down, that was for sure, which meant that there could be other failures. But she couldn't risk it to go out and check.

She wasn't sure what she expected when she faked the paperwork to seem eighteen (she was bored with high school, and brilliant enough to pass all of Virgin's exams), signed on with Virgin Galactic, but it certainly wasn't being shipped off to some crazy space station with a forest in it with a crazy supervisor. Mick. He tried to kill her. Muttering something about China and eliminating evidence. But somehow, she had managed to wrestle his gun away and kill him first.

She had managed to lock herself in here safe. And that was about where her good luck ended. Now no one would answer her radio calls. She hasn't slept in…a long time. Maybe a day or two. She honestly wasn't sure.

Worst. Internship. Ever.

She could hear noises nearby. She twitched. Were they about to find her?

The doors opened, and she got ready to defend herself against…

A bunch of kids?

They all shone flashlights at her nervously, but she was pretty sure that none of them were older than her. And then looked just as panicky as her.

There was a fair bit of threatening, then some demanding of toolkits. A few well-placed questions and she was able to piece their story together-that they had teleported up, all the adults had died, and the systems _were_ down. Heat and oxygen.

Well, fixing things. She could deal with that.

* * *

Simon and his other mechanic friends clustered around heat systems. A few of the Marines had joined them-some kid named Tim Andrews. They made a good team. Everyone else was making a lot of noise, yelling for tools, passing around tools, yelling for light…it was the most haphazard and disorganized fix-it job he had ever tried.

The group of high school kids crowded around the entire building. Astrid pushed past them to the heating system. "I work here," she insisted. "I know how all the systems work. Let me see it."

"We've got it!" someone retorted. "They're the best! The smartest."

"I don't know what sort of students you are. But I work here. I helped build this. So I don't have to try to figure out how it works fist. Let me help," she said. Finally, they made way to let her in.

"We've got it!" a cry went up. "The code to put int the computer! To recallibrate! It's 'heart'."

And no one noticed Artemis stabbing a knife into the back of Simon's head. She slipped the weapon back into her dress, then began hyperventilating, pretending to be scared. She was a good actress. A few people seemed to notice, but most of them hurried back to the control room with the code, and then the body disappeared. Out of sight, out of mind. She liked this place. The floor would eat up the evidence.

And the blood on her knife made such pretty patterns.

* * *

There! Near the…well, to be honest, she wasn't sure what the building was. But Blue was unmistakably standing in front of it, giving his team orders.

She fell in step. They seemed to be talking about the systems down.

"Blue!" she shouted.

He whirled. "Julia!"

Straight to business seemed to be the easiest way to deal with…deal with being with him. Talking to him. "Heat systems and oxygen are down. The kids are organizing parties to try to fix the mechanics of it. The control room has a map and everything."

"This place is messed up," he agreed.

"Well, the floor eats people."

"What?"

"It's an organic recycling system. It opens up and takes dead bodies. So watch out. If it glitches…"

"Yeah." He shuddered. "Virgin Galactic is _sick._"

A figure bumbled towards them. Sparks. Although he…he was _dead._ "What-"

Blue shot him in the head. He continued walking forwards.

Julia sucked in a breath. "He was our teacher."

"_Was_," Blue said. "They're all over. They don't die again. They don't seem to be violent, but if they did-"

"Stop," one of the other Marines said. Sparks' body froze. "Go away," she commanded.

He turned and walked away.

"Best way to deal with them. They follow orders to the letter."

Julia shrugged, but she couldn't stop glancing over her shoulder. Dead bodies walking around? It was…disconcerting, to say the least. The way Blue kept clutching his gun showed her he felt similarly.

"Do you have any idea why we're here?" she asked. "I mean, it looks like we're guinea pigs or something. Why would they take a bunch of students and kill them off?"

"I don't know." He looked honest, about that part, at least.

One of his mechanics hurried forward. "We've got a toolkit. Come on, let's go to life support."

"I can lead you there," Julia volunteered, thanking whatever higher power that her memory served her enough to bring up the map from the control room in her mind's eye.

They made the journey in silence to a little building where a bunch of students crowded. Blue's mechanics hurried to join in the raw, while she and Blue stayed five meters back, watching.

"I, um, I've got something to tell you. I sort of run a gang," Blue said. She nodded distractedly. She wondered if she should tell him about Lucas. Wondered if he would understand. Understand how six months ago, at the end of the school year, she had learned that due to a tight economy, Zwei was cutting back on nearly all their financial aid.

Learned that she wasn't going to be able to come back next year, because she couldn't afford it, and there was no way that she would be able to convince her parents to pay.

She made a decision.

She went to Lucas. She seduced him. She slept with him. She made sure that he wouldn't be able to lose her. Then she stepped back and watched as he pulled the right strings to get her the money.

He had loved her, and she had used it.

And the worst part was, she wasn't sure if she regretted it.

She kind of hated herself for it.

_New life, new beginning,_ she told herself. _Forget about Lucas. Don't let it ruin what you have here. Whatever it is that you have._

"So you run a gang and you're trying to take over the space station?" she asked.

"Pretty much."

"Well, you're probably going to need a pilot."

His breath wooshed out, and he cracked her a breathtaking smile. "Yes. Yes, we will."

"Well, I'm the best. And I can't just leave you here."

They stared at one another in silence for a moment, neither quite sure of what to say. Then, suddenly, the rest of the Marines sprinted across the catwalk. "We fixed life support, we've got the code!" one shouted.

"Good. To the control room," Blue ordered. "And get all the kids out of there, too."

In tight formation, the gang moved forward, back towards the light and noise of the main buildings. They burst into the control room. Everyone was around the pedestal with the keyboard, with one kid typing. Drake.

"Get out!" Blue shouted. "This room is being taken over by the Marines. Everyone who is not a Marine, get out!"

About half the kids left the room. Then the Marines began threatening them with guns. Most of them hurried faster. One of the kids tried to fight back, or wasn't moving fast enough, or something. A Marine shot him in the foot.

Julia flinched at the noise, and ignored the screaming that came after it. She's sticking with Blue. She's one of them now. Besides, his justifications made perfect sense-better to keep order with guns than have the kids stampede or get in the way. Less people would be hurt in the long run. They were saving lives, and that meant that they couldn't be squeamish.

This was an emergency, and desperate times called for desperate measures. Besides, the rest of the students shouldn't be stupid enough to argue with the people with the guns.

* * *

Simon Rutan looked up at the bright lights. They hurt.

Or rather, he thought they should hurt. They were bright. He should flinch, shouldn't he?

"It's okay, you're here, you're safe." A cool hand caressed his forehead.

He peered upwards.

The woman. The strange woman. He was sure he recognized her…it was just all…all so fuzzy.

A flashing pain in the back of his head.

"Am…am I dead?" he asked.

"Not quite. You're here for a very important purpose-you're representing humanity right now. Just relax, and let your mind wander."

For a moment, he just closed his eyes, and relaxed into the sensations. Everything was tingling and funny. Scenes from his childhood danced before his eyes-playing with inventing, laughing with his father, tripping and scraping his knee. Being rude to his parents. Everyday things. Normal things.

Something about that bothered him. Representing humanity? "But…but I'm not…I'm nothing. I'm normal. I've done nothing special. Why me?"

She smiled down at him. "You don't have to do anything special to be special. You don't have to do anything amazing to be amazing. You're perfect and unique and you're making a difference and the world would be a less vibrant place without you. You're special."

"But I'm normal."

"You're still special."

He relaxed, and the rest of his life flashed before his eyes. All up to coming onto this ship, the fixing of the oxygen then heating systems, all the way up until…

…until he was killed.

Was this the afterlife, then?

But his eyes landed on Adrian Branson hovering in the corner. He felt a flash of annoyance. He hadn't seen his father in months. The whole thing about interplanetary travel-his father joked the new hush-hush technology was aliens, but he thought it was a new AI. He was rather annoyed with the entire Virgin administrative staff-something had gone horribly wrong. All the machinery breaking down? That was just bad form.

And besides, it would be silly if Adrian Branson showed up in the afterlife. Especially because as far as he knew, Branson wasn't dead.

Branson was a family friend, though, and his annoyance had long since drained away. It was like he couldn't feel anything other than a blissful calm. "Wha-" he started to ask, but it all faded, the whole scene, like some crazy dream.

And when he opened his eyes again, he didn't remember any of it.

* * *

"Oy! You! Who are you? Get out of here!" one of the Marines said, waving their gun at Julia.

"I'm Julia. I'm with Blue," she said calmly.

"Blue? You know this girl?"

Blue glanced over. "Yeah. That's Julia. She's cool. She's one of us."

"Alright." The Marine left her.

Taken in. Just like that.

A few more of them came up to her and questioned her presence-one of the younger ones, Michelle, struck up a faltering conversation with her. The girl was sweet, and polite enough, but Julia could definitely feel a weird sort of tension between them. She was a member of higher society-refined, aloof, proper, upscale-everything they would hate.

Well, she could also be pragmatic and ruthless. And she was intelligent. Power respects power, as simple as that. She would be useful. More than useful-she could become irreplaceable. She had already proved her use time and time again to Blue. He would be dead if not for her.

"Who are you?" one of the other Marines came over and said.

"Julia. I'm with Blue," she said. Michelle nodded, or perhaps they had all grown used to her in the room, because he didn't question her.

"Deckard. Mind if I check your hand?" Not even bothering to wait for her response, he reached for her hand and pushed her glove up, looked at the back of her hand, then flipped it over and checked her pulse.

"I'm a medic, too," Julia said, grinning. Coming over and checking her-quite considerate. If not a little weird.

"One can never be too careful with hypothermia. Dangerous, dangerous affliction," he said, then walked off, to check someone else.

Blue's gang had taken over the control room quite efficiently. Their team was out to fix positioning. They had gotten all of the students sitting in the cafeteria. Their mechanic team was off fixing something. Everything was calm. In control. Quiet.

Well, quite frankly, the whole thing was the likes of an out-of-body experience. She kept hearing gunfire from outside, and was somewhat disturbed at how easily she had started to ignore it. It had become a part of the background noise.

Julia glanced at the map. Heat and life support was fixed, but positioning and communications were down. Positioning could be a problem; the orbit should be steady, but they wouldn't know if anything went wrong. And knowing this death trap, something would go wrong.

"Blue? Are you going to fix positioning and communications?"

"Already got a team on it," he assured her.

Suddenly, there were more shouts, and a loud gunshot. One of the Marines burst into the door, panting. There were screams and shouts from behind him.

"What happened?" Blue asked.

"HE SHOT A KID! HE SHOUT A KID!" one of the students from behind the door shouted, pounding on it furiously.

Julia let out a shaky breath. She wasn't sure if she was okay with this.

"Did you?" Blue demanded.

"Yes! She tried to stab me!" the Marine said.

The tension left Blue's shoulders. "Alright. That's reasonable. Explain it to the kids-they need to sit down and behave, or we hurt them. Turn the mistake into an example."

The Marine nodded, and returned back out there, shouting. There were more gunshots. Julia winced. Finally, casting his eyes towards the ceiling, Blue moved out the door to address them all.

"Why are you shooting us? Why-"

"Everyone SILENCE!" he shouted, firing his gun a few times to punctuate. They obeyed. "Alright. We don't like hurting you. We're only trying to help you. But when you hinder us or try to attack us, we are not afraid to shoot you. I need everyone in here, sitting at a table, remaining silent. We are taking over this ship."

"Excuse me? What if we don't want a part in your new society?" one of the Oudeterans asked. "Can we teleport home?"

"I'm sorry, but right now, the teleporters have to remain closed. We do not want hostile police forces teleporting in and killing everyone," Blue said.

"What about our families? Can we ever see them again?" a tearful kid sniffled.

"We can fly them up after we have the station secured and fixed up," Blue said.

"Well, if you're flying them up, then can't the police forces fly up, too?" the Oudeteran protested.

"We are working it all out. Right now, we need you to sit down and do what we say, or we are going to shoot you," Blue said coldly, ending all discussion. Then he turned around and stalked back to the control room. Julia followed in his wake, with a bitter taste in her mouth.

So this was what it meant, to be a part of the gang. She didn't think she was quite cut out for this life.

* * *

Kellen Adams' life was a collection of problems.

Problem 1. Six months ago, her father, Joseph Adams, was brutally murdered in his home. She and her older sister Jodie found the body, bloody and battered, in the living room. That was a bit traumatizing.

Problem 2. With her father dead, relations with the Oudeteran church had been quite strained. It didn't help that her mother, Miriam, was very Jewish. Things had always been a bit at odds, but it had only become less comfortable.

Problem 3. She knew the kid arrested for killing her dad. Asa Kramer. She had gone to middle school with him. She testified all sorts of things about him bullying her in middle school, because he had killed her father. The murder weapon was found in his house, covered in blood. But…

Problem 4. She also knew his girlfriend. His ex-girlfriend now. Mickenzie. And she was sort of in love with her.

Problem 5. Which conflicted with the fact that she already had a boyfriend. Kind of. Drake was an aloof asshole, but he was *her* aloof asshole. Not that they had agreed on anything official or anything, but he put up with her more than anything else, and they had been hooking up for a long time. She was worried that he was secretly depressed, and just wanted to find a way to help him.

Problem 6. She was stuck on a space ship with oxygen and heating systems down, and her teachers had just died. Other kids were dying. She had seen Simon Rutton just fall to the ground, stabbed in the back of the head, and a girl in a black dress stepping back surreptitiously. Which meant that maybe there were more murderers on this ship, whoop-de-doo.

Problem 7. A gang had just taken over the ship. Blue's Marines. They had kicked everyone out of the control room, and was holding them all hostage in the cafeteria. Not that she really cared. She had bigger problems.

Because (8) Mckenzie was clutching her throat by the door, choking, bleeding to death. The girl in the black dress was backing away. Kellen shouted, but it was too late, she was gone.

Mckenzie collapsed to the floor, and the gurgling went silent.

Then the floor opened up and took her in.

Then the girl in the black dress headed towards the door, and another one of Blue's Marines, a woman, heard the commotion and shot the girl who killed Mckenzie.

Kellen swallowed her tears. She had to go on, she could help other people if they got hurt, maybe. She had taken a few medical courses at Berkley High, enough to be halfway competent. Besides, the girl had deserved to die. She had killed 'Kenzie and the mechanic-

The mechanic who was standing in the doorway, looking around, confused.

"Why aren't you dead?" she demanded.

But he just shook his head. "Um, because I didn't die?"

"Where have you been for the last half hour?"

"I don't remember!"

Suddenly, screams and gunfire cut her interrogation off. Three bodies off in the hallway fall to the ground.

Kellen stared for a moment, before she burst into action.

She headed for the students first. One was dead. The other was shot in the lung, and was going into final convulsions as she reached him.

The third was a Marine, gasping by the corpses of the students.

She didn't know whether or not to help. They had come, they had shot kids, they had hurt kids-but the convicts had seem to have broken away, gotten guns, and were starting some sort of gang war on the space station? She didn't know what was going on anymore. She didn't know what was right or wrong.

She didn't know if she should save the life of this Marine, or if he deserved to die. And long moments passed as she hovered indecisively.

A cry came from behind her, as one of the Marine girls ran over and fiddled with her nanotech, pouring the whole vial into her friend's chest. Kellen met eyes with her, then working together, they hauled his body onto a bench. The nanotech wasn't enough; he was losing blood too quickly, and was going to die before it could patch him up.

"I'm sorry," Kellen said. "I don't know what to do. I can't bring him back to life."

"I'm hoping for a miracle," she whispered.

Despite the fact that kids were shouting all around them, the world felt silent. Muffled. Cut off.

The Marine died.

Kellen glanced at the girl, wondering if she should offer support. The girl was just staring at his body silently, rocking back and forth. "It's best to let the floor take him," Kellen said softly. "He might come back. But now's your time to pay your respects, and let him go."

Together, they picked up the corpse and lowered it to the ground.

A few seconds passed, then the ground opened and his body disappeared.

And Kellen felt like a bit of her disappeared with him.

She had let him die. If she had treated him immediately, maybe he would have been saved. Maybe…maybe…

How could she have gotten so tied up in her problems that she overlooked the fact that they were all people? And that she could help them? Staring at the empty floor, she vowed that she would work to save the life of anyone hurt, whether they were a student, a Marine…or even a convict.

Asa.

The old anger was gone. She had known him in middle school, her sister was right: the boy didn't do it. He had no reason to kill her father. He never would have been able to kill in the first place.

Suddenly, she felt a pang of regret for all of the shit about him bullying her that she made up at the trial. She had another vow-that she was going to make it up to him somehow. He was her friend and she betrayed him. But that was past. And maybe she could be better in the future.

She didn't know…she didn't know what that made her. Her life was just so messed up. She had no idea who she was anymore. She wasn't sure if it was the absence of the anger, or if she had changed and just hadn't noticed. She hadn't been keeping track.

And that was a scary thought.

* * *

Blue paced nervously around the control room. "We have to keep the communications down. We have to secure the station. Keep the teleporters offline."

"Branson's kid is on the ship," Julia said offhand.

"What?"

"You seem to be worried about being targeted or what-not. Adrian Branson's son, Tate Branson, is here with the CPS kids. I'm acquaintances with him. I could point him out to you, if you wanted-"

"Yes. Yes, please." She could see relief in his eyes.

This was it. Being ruthless. Being useful. She could do it. She was _not_ weak.

Blue and two others burst into the cafeteria room where the rest of the kids had been waiting. "Tate. Where is Tate? I need to speak to him," Blue said.

"There he is!" Julia said, rushing to his side. "Come on."

"Come into the control room. I need to speak to you."

"Okay, sure!" Tate smiled.

True, all the kids had been trying to get into the control room for the past hour. But seriously, were they all so stupid to have no idea what the Marines were doing? Randomly inviting Adrian Branson's son inside? What else would it be, besides a hostage roundup?

Tate looked around excitedly inside. "Alright, what can I do for you?" he asked.

"Just…stand there in the corner," Blue said. "You're to make sure they don't target us with missiles, or try to send in a team of private security."

"Oh." Tate looked a tad downcast, but mostly bored. Blue, however, seemed rather relieved.

And Julia had another idea. A delicious idea.

"Do you know who Alexandra Sorren is?"

"Sorren? Some…politician?"

"Only the most important politician of our time. Come on, surely you've heard of 'Alexandra the Great.' She was the one who created the South-Eastern Asian Protectorate."

"Well, what about her?"

"Her son is also on the ship. One of the Zwei kids. A…friend…of mine."

Blue gave her a this-is-awesome-but-_wow_-you-have-friends-in-high-places sort of look. And Julia replied with a yeah-I-try-what-can-I-say-I'm-a-Zwei-kid look. Then they headed out towards the dining room again.

This time, Blue didn't bother calling out to the entire room. Julia just made a beeline straight to be back, where the Zwei kids had taken over a whole table. "Lucas. Come with me."

He followed her unquestioningly to the door.

"I'd like to talk with you," Blue said. "In here."

Lucas glared at him, but otherwise filed in silently.

"Alright, stand in the corner. Michelle, guard them. You're hostages."

Lucas's face expressed his open contempt. "Hostages? What kind of a hostage situation is this? Where are the bagels and orange juice?"

"Really, Lucas!" Julia chastised. "We're on a space station. Where do you think they're going to get bagels and orange juice?"

He turned and looked at her, and for a moment, they just stared at each other. It was like they were back to the beginning again. When push had come to shove, she had helped a strange gang leader capture him. Not Lucas. Alexandra Sorren's kid.

She had betrayed him when it mattered the most.

Hell, she had _volunteered_ him. To be helpful to Blue. To see the gratefulness in his eyes.

It was over, and both of them knew it.

"I'll go get some orange juice," she said. "I saw some snacks in the cafe. Just cooperate, okay?"

She hurried out of the room, past Blue's guard, past the students, and filled two cups of lemonade with trembling hands.

Back in Blue's control room, Lucas was giving Michelle a hard time.

"So you're fifteen?"

"Yeah, I'm fifteen," she said. "And what's that to you?"

"Aren't you a little young for this whole…business?" Lucas raised an eyebrow at her, and gave her his most condescending smirk.

"Well, I'm carrying a gun, so cut the crap," she said, pointing the nub at him. He shut up.

Julia held up the lemonade as a peace offering. Lucas took his. "Thanks."

"Sure," she said.

Their hands brushed.

There were a lot of unspoken words between them. They weren't a couple anymore. They had never really been a couple. But it felt cleaner, more honest.

Maybe they'd be able to stay friends.

Just maybe.

Blue walked over, looking uncharacteristically nervous, running his fingers back through his hair. "Look, you're hostages, but really, everyone are hostages here. We're all stuck on this ship together. So you can go back to your friends. Just…don't try to escape or anything, okay?" He kept glancing at the door. Tate and Lucas shared a look-this was definitely the lamest hostage kidnapping in their entire lives-but filed back to the dining room without complaint. Julia looked back at Blue, torn, but followed them instead.

Heigar was waiting by the door.

"What do you know?" she asked him. Something was bothering Blue. Something big. And if anyone knew what was going on, it would be Heigar.

"Hm?"

"You've been talking to people, finding stuff out. I don't have time for this. I need to know exactly what you know, what you've discovered."

He grinned. "Nice to be appreciated."

"You're a _Zwei_ kid."

"Alright. I've talked to a few people, sure. This isn't Virgin Galactic's main project. Far from it. They're planning the colonization of Mars."

"What?"

"All of this technology-it's new, and experimental, and meant for the Mars colonies."

"So they really are using us as guinea pigs."

He nodded.

"It makes no sense, though. Why would they sacrifice the best and the brightest? Their future? There are so many people not worth their oxygen that they could have sent up. Why kids? It would be for really bad publicity, too, the moment all of this gets out. We're missing a piece of the puzzle." She sighed. "Keep asking around, and if you find out anything more, tell me, okay?"

He nodded.

She had to find Blue. The Mars mission might interest him.

He wasn't in the cafeteria, so she pushed through the door, presenting the usual passport to the Marine guard of, "I'm Julia, I'm with Blue." They were all starting to recognize her now, and she was pretty sure that was a good thing. It was useful, at least.

Julia glanced around the control room, but Blue wasn't there. She had last seen him heading outside, so she hurried on. It was a contained space station, he shouldn't be too hard to find.

Outside, the air was still crisp and chill, and her breath billowed out in front of her like a plume of smoke. She could see a group of people talking in the distance, so she quietly moved in. Yup, it was Blue. He was standing off to the side, with one of the rougher-looking members of his gang. But she could see the look on his face-he was rather upset. She moved closer, into earshot.

"Yeah, I'm an alien," the woman was saying. "But since when has that ever bothered you? We're still fighting against your corrupt corporations. We'll destroy it all. We've got a society where the strongest survive. Actual social mobility, no glass ceiling. Just survival of the fittest. You're strong. You're a warrior. We hold warriors in the highest regard. So join us."

"What you're saying sounds very tempting..." Blue trailed off.

Suddenly Deckard came up behind him and pressed a gun to his back. Julia hissed in a breath. "Not a choice," Deckard said. "Join us or die."

"It's not really that bad," Morgan continued. "I mean, all of the Fidiani are as hot as we are."

"I shot you in the head," Blue said to Deckard, with the expression of a man literally seeing a ghost. Or not, because Decakard looked quite solid and quite annoyed. "I shot you in the head. Back there. And you went down. I..."

But already the hole in Deckard's forehead was closing.

"Mach-three skin suit. You couldn't hurt us if you wanted to."

"And even if you did figure out a way to kill us," Morgan said, "the unstoppable Fidiani war machine will be arriving at your planet in a year tops. We're the only hope you have of actually surviving. You're a warrior. This shouldn't be too hard of a decision. You share a lot of values with us."

"But society doesn't only need warriors," Blue said.

"Of course not. But we do appreciate ours."

Deckard shoved the gun into his back, and Julia gasped in a breath. "You need to decide now," Morgan continued. "Are you with us, or are you dead?"

Julia clutched the vial of nanotech in her pocket. As long as the wound wasn't fatal, she could fix him up. That is, if they didn't shoot her down too. But she wasn't just going to let Blue get himself killed by aliens.

Suddenly, a hysterical student burst into the field. "Amy! Amy, where are you?" she shouted.

"_GET OUT OF HERE!" _Deckard roared.

"But Amy! I need to find Amy!"

"Amy isn't here," Julia shouted. "You need to go away."

"Get out of here, or I will shoot you," Morgan explained.

"And who are you?" Deckard asked, turning his gun to Julia.

"Julia Bahana. I'm with Blue," she said, feeling like it was becoming the catch-phrase of the night.

"Show me your hand," Deckard demanded.

She stuck her arm out, complying. "You already checked me inside."

After ensuring that her skin was normal, he nodded. "You can never be too careful, checking for hypothermia."

"You don't have to lie," she said. "I'm smart. I'm one of the strong."

Morgan turned back to Blue. "So are you with us."

"Everyone worthy would survive. And we would have aliens fighting to take down the same corporations you are trying to fight right now. We could create a whole new world," Julia said. _Just agree,_ she prayed. Right now, there was no other option than to go along with the Fidiani. He could lie, he could act...she just didn't want him to get shot on the stop for his glubbing _principles._

"You know, what you're saying...it really resonates with me," he equivocated.

"So you're with us?"

"I'm with you."

"Good. I didn't want to have to kill you. Now, let's go fix this ship and finish our mission."

Morgan stepped forward, and from behind her, a girl rose from the ground where she had been crouching. Well. So Amy had been there, apparently. "You have ten minutes to find me the two of them, and bring them, or I'm going to kill you," Morgan stated coldly.

Then Julia, Blue, and Morgan stalked off back towards the control room.

Julia slipped her hand into Blue's and squeezed it to try to offer him a sliver of support. He glanced back at her uncertainly, but clutched her hand like a lifeline. They headed towards the door of the control room, straight into a kid trying to hack his way in.

Drake.

"What are you doing?" Morgan demanded.

"I'm-"

"Too late." She shot him in the knee. He fell to the floor, screaming in pain.

"What was that for?" another student shouted, crouching down, putting a hand on Drake's shoulder.

"Didn't tell me fast enough," Morgan said, then she pushed past them into the control room. Blue and Julia quickly followed. They didn't want to get on her bad side.

Projected up against the far wall, the communications log showed that students had already wired for help:

Singapore: Space station Eden, message received. This is Singapore Spaceport main tower.  
Singapore: Are you in distress?  
eden: YES WE ARE  
eden: THE SYSTEMS HAVE BROKEN DOWN

Morgan glared at Blue, who went to the keyboard. The threat of a gun was implied. Blue, however, seemed completely calm. Like he could see the prize again, and he was going to get it. Whatever "it" was.

eden: CORRECTION, SINGAPORE. ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO.  
Singapore: All systems operational, Eden? Please confirm.  
eden: EDEN IS MALFUNCTIONING, NOTHING UNMANAGABLE.  
eden: CONFIRMATION.  
Singapore: Understood. Thanks for the update, Eden. Hope you're having a good time up there.

Not even bothering to acknowledge them, Morgan turned and left the room.

Blue turned back to the pedestal, putting his hands on the side of the pedestal and hanging his head. Julia moved towards him, hesitant, reaching out a hand-

"Blue," someone said quietly.

They both whirled around.

One of the Berkeley High kids-Conor, the strange Berkeley High kid that she had met when she was hanging out with Drake, who knew advanced, groundbreaking physics, but hadn't heard of stuff like "Newton's Laws," who had only expressed any emotion when she mentioned how much she dreamed of getting off this dirtball and flying amongst the stars-he was standing behind them, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to waltz in past all the Marine security and address Blue.

Julia glanced from Blue to Conor, to Blue, to Connor again. _Oooh._ "You *would*," she breathed. Blue shot her a look.

"May I speak with you in private?" he continued.

Blue nodded. "Let's go outside.


	3. Chapter 3

Meh, don't even think I'm going to bother with these anymore. Same thing applies, etc, etc.

* * *

"Did you hear that? Out there? With Morgan?" Blue said. He, Julia, Conor, and Conor's sister, Shaina, were standing by one of the far buildings off to the edge. Amy hovered off to the side.

"I heard everything."

"But did you see? I shot him. I shot him in the head."

Julia nodded, but kept her eyes fixed on Conor.

"Do you know what's going on?" Blue asked.

"I don't!" Any cried. "They were pointing guns at me and it didn't make sense and I don't know who I have to find and they're going to kill me and-"

"An alien race is hunting down more aliens, and they're going to invade our planet in a year," Julia said. Amy burst into tears again, and hurried off to the side to quiet herself how. Julia let out a sigh. "Really, it's not that hard to keep up. Conor, you know something that you'd like to share?"

"They're Findiani. They're a crude society of warriors. Mercenaires. And they're hunting us down," Conor replied.

"And you're…?" Julia cocked an eyebrow with her question.

"Sindi. Another race. They have been tracking my sister and myself. We're looking for a third, though. The Diplomat. We tracked her psychic signature into orbit. She could get us out of here."

Julia nodded absent-mindedly. "They were checking hands."

Both siblings held up their hands, showing a blue rash covering the top. "Second-rate skinsuits. They're horribly itchy, and they have little tells. Like the rashes."

Julia nodded again.

"But the Fidiani said their fleet was coming," Blue burst out.

"They conquer and enslave planets, and sell off the survivors as slaves. That's what happened to us," Conor said.

"So how do we prepare? Get our weapons ready? We've got a year."

The Sindi sibling burst out laughing in unison. Conor elaborated, "The Fidiani war machine is the best and most ruthless in the galaxy. They crush everyone. _No one_ can stand up to them."

"What about the human war machine?" Blue said.

"The human war machine?" Conor asked.

"Yeah. I mean, do you know our capabilities? We've got thermonuclear weapons and-"

"The Fidiani's opinion on your human war machine can be summed up in that statement of: 'Nukes? Oh! How _quaint._' Trust me when I say you don't stand a chance. These are the people who will reflect gravity to create a contained black hole in the center of your planet if they get to annoyed with you. Nothing stops the Fidiani."

"It doesn't matter, we can't do anything about it unless people know. We'd need to be united as a race. We need to prepare. We have to warn humanity," Julia said. Conor stared at her. "Well, what else can we do?" she continued defensively. "At least we'd be doing _something._"

"And who's going to listen to us? We're a gang of criminals," Blue said.

"And we're a bunch of kids, who were just placed in an extremely traumatic situation. They could easily discount anything we said as hallucinations, craziness," Julia finished. "No one's going to believe us."

She was silent for a moment, then something dawned on her.

"Nobody's going to believe _us._ But Adrain Branson? The C.E.O. of Virgin Galactic, the owner of Virgin Groups, one of the most powerful, wealthy, and influential people alive. They'd listen to him. He could bring humanity together."

"Adrian Branson?"

"I bet he's on the ship," Julia continued. "He insinuated this in the promotional trailer. All we have to do is arrange a meeting with him, and then we can convince him. Save all of humanity. Or at least get us ready."

Blue turned back to the two aliens, and Amy, who had snuck up behind them. "Alright. Can you stay safe, and hidden? We'll try to get you off this craft."

They nodded.

"Then come on. Let's go."

Blue and Julia hurried off as Amy approached her friends. "You're quiet and you're weird and you don't know terms and sometimes you say things that don't make sense and you have these blue rashes on the back of your hands and-are-are-are you _aliens_ or something?"

And smiling, simultaneously, they nodded.

Blue and Julia had already moved away, heading back towards the main buildings, when the found an automaton.

The intern. Which meant she must have died. Julia was too busy worrying about other problems to care.

"Can you take us to Adrain Branson?" Julia asked.

The intern silently shook her head.

"Can you tell Adrian Branson a message?"

Again, no.

"Can you take a note to Adrain Branson?"

The automaton turned and began to walk away. Julia and Blue shared a look, then raced after her. She led them into a small room, then grabbed a pen from the desk. Julia took a pen out of her pocket, and quickly wrote down a note.

"What does it say?" Blue asked.

_"Adrain Branson: Emergency. Human race in danger. Please meet with Blue immediately_," Julia replied. "I figured it sums everything up nicely enough without revealing too much if it falls into wrong hands. Then you and I can go and explain in person." She turned to the automaton. "Take the note to Adrian Branson, please."

The automaton silently exited, heading off to some unknown room.

"So now what do we do?"

Julia sighed. "We go back. The cafeteria. Try to protect the other kids, stay in sight so that the intern can find us. And we wait."

* * *

Lucas felt angry, useless, and spurned, and not necessarily in that order.

_She would_, was all he could think.

She would know what was going on. She would be the only kid with access to the control room. She would bring him as a hostage and still be able to make him feel like it was somehow his fault, like he was acting childish or immature or something.

And now he was stuck here, while she was off running around with Blue, doing who-knows-what, and-

"Hey." Heigar slid into the seat next to him.

Lucas glanced up. "What?" he growled. He wasn't in the mood to make small talk. He wasn't really in the mood for anything.

"The robots. They take our orders, right?"

"I suppose?"

"I've been experimenting. They simply obey the latest order that they've been given, forgetting all earlier commands. But I still think it's possible-"

"To get an indefinite command. I have an idea." The spark had returned to Lucas's eyes. He could build an army of automatons, loyal only to him, then he's show Julia. For always being better than him, always first in class, always the one that everyone listened to. He would show her.

He quickly scrawled down a list:

_-only obey orders given to you by Lucas Sorren. Obey all orders given to you by Lucas Sorren. This is an indefinite order. It continues on._

_-go fetch me an orange._

_-until these orders are finished, you cannot receive or follow other orders from an outside source._

then handed the list to one of the automatons. "Read this list and obey the orders on it," he commanded. "Until these orders are finished, you cannot receive any other orders."

The automaton made its way towards the fruit bar, where Heigar, catching on, stopped it and said, "Give me the orange."

The automaton ignored him and continued to Lucas, depositing the orange.

Heigar and Lucas high-fived.

"So we'll make the lists-"

"Indefinite commands-"

"No limit on what we could do-"

"Well let's get cracking!"

Lucas grinned. The thought of Julia and Blue and everyone else who had ever looked down on him, cowering in the face of his robot army-

Well. Perhaps he was being a tad bit delusional. But at least he was _something_, instead of sulking.

* * *

Blue and Julia slipped back into the cafeteria room, straight in the middle of another tense scene: Morgan was playing with a gun, looking at one of the girls expectantly. "Go on. Five minutes are up. Read me my poem."

Phoebe Bell opened her mouth and cleared her throat nervously. Sure, she was a SOTA kid. Sure, she was in Word Track. Sure, she was going to be a huge poet. As soon as she, you know, finished her poem.

But then having the arguably scariest member of the gang holding them all hostage come up to her, put a gun to her head, and demand a poem written in five minutes? It was enough to put anyone on edge. But she could do it. She was a poet, and she could do it. She could do anything.

The entire room quieted under a single glare from Morgan, and Phoebe opened her mouth and spoke:

"They come and promise a brand new world,  
Without fear, or poverty, or pain.  
You want to help, but don't know how  
and doubt you can even explain  
How useless you feel  
With just a pencil to heal  
the pain of a thousand hearts.  
And you wish that you knew  
Something you could do  
to help fix the broken parts."

The room was completely silent. Everyone looked at Morgan nervously. How was she going to react?

"That. Was." (a collective intake of breath, as they all waited.) "_Gorgeous._" Morgan glared at all of them. "Absolutely magnificent. I think she needs a round of applause."

And the room burst into a relieved applause. Yes, the poem was absolutely amazing. And Morgan's approbation was a welcome side-effect. That and the fact that she wasn't going to kill the genius poet sitting in their midst.

Crisis averted by the power of the pen. Apparently it was mightier than guns, too.

With Morgan sufficiently distracted, the intern automaton slipped a note into Blue's hands. He stared at it for a moment, then shoved it towards Julia. Quickly, she uncrumpled the paper to read:

_I don't negotiate with terrorists. Surrender. -A_

A flash of annoyance flushed Julia's face, and she bit her lip. Hadn't the '_human race in danger'_ part indicated that they were beyond such pettiness of hostage situations? And besides, they had sixty important hostages, and control of the station to boot. He really wasn't in the position to negotiate. But if he wanted to be pretentious, she could deal with pretentious. It wasn't really Blue that needed to meet him-she could be a lot more convincing; she had a lot more experience with public speaking and debate. She wanted to get in with Branson, and Blue seemed to be a good ticket.

If he wouldn't talk with Blue, fine. She could compose a message and go see him herself. She hurried to the control room. No one was there. Glancing back at the door and hoping that the Fidiani wouldn't burst in, she typed:

RX231: Communications are online. What is the nature of your problem?  
eden: CAN WE SPEAK WITH ADRAIN BRANSON?  
eden: WE NEED TO SPEAK WITH A HUMAN AIUTHORITY FIGURE  
eden: AND BRANSON SEEMS TO HAVE EASIEST ACCESS.  
RX231: Mr. Branson is currently occupied. If you'd like to schedule an appointment, his secretary can be reached at .

He was on the ship. His handwriting _proved_ it. But it seemed like he wasn't going to respond to electronic requests. Probably wouldn't even see it. And she did not have time to contact his secretary and wait _months._ Humanity didn't have months, not more than twelve.

Alright, note. She could send another note, making it sound like Blue was sending her. Branson _needed_ to know. Humanity _had_ to be ready. Failure was not an option.

Well, first she needed a writing utensil and something to carry her message. "Anyone have some paper?" One of the students looked up.

"Sure." She handed over a sheet of paper, and a pen for good measure.

"Thanks," Julia said. Then she began to scribble down a second note, albeit in neat, careful letters. One could always spare the time to exhibit fine calligraphy, even if a homicidal alien might peer over one's shoulder anytime and murder them for the contents of the note.

_Adrian Branson-_

_This is not a negotiation. This is not a threat. It is a warning. We will send two your hand-picked students to explain this message in person. This is more important than Blue and the Eden. Humanity as a race is in danger. Please help._

She handed the message back to the intern automaton. "Take this to Adrian Branson, please," she said. "Destroy it if anyone else tries to get their hands on it."

"Julia!" Heigar called. She turned back to see a semi-circle of Zwei kids.

"What?"

"We need you to pilot the escape ship off of this-" Charlie began.

"Escape ship?"

"We've got to get away from the gang!"

She looked at them and realized that she had completely forgotten that everyone thought their problem here was they were being held hostage by a hostile gang trying to take over the Eden, instead of worrying about a malevolent race of aliens out to enslave the planet.

"Look, you're going to have to escape without me," she said.

"But we can't…I don't know how…" Charlie sputtered. All of her classmates looked at her hopefully, Heigar with an eyebrow raised, Kara holding onto little Pat, biting her lip.

"You're a *Zwei* kid," Julia said, somewhat annoyed. "You can do anything. You docked the ship, flying it back will be a breeze. But you've got to do it without me."

Charlie stepped back, shocked into silence.

Heigar caught on to the desperation in her voice. "What's going on?" he asked.

"It's…it's bigger than any of this. Eden? The gang? It all doesn't matter. Just…go back to Earth and live the year in peace." She hurried away from them. She couldn't deal with their questions. Not now.

"Julia." Blue grabbed her arm. She could tell from the panicky look in his eyes that he wasn't dealing with the knowledge of the imminent destruction of the human race very well.

"I…I…what do we do? Do we tell people? We're…"

Exactly what she was trying to decide.

She had to keep a cool head. Blue was depending on her. So she took a deep breath, and pushed all her panic and emotion into a box inside her head. "Tell the strong," she said, realizing the irony of it. It was true, though. "Tell those who can deal with the knowledge. The rest of the children will only panic, so they don't need to know."

He paced around nervously again, then hurried to the windows overlooking the room. Then he leaned out of them and shouted, "Hey, you know the woman in my gang? She's an alien. She's taken over. And her whole race is coming to enslave you all in a year. So just do whatever, and try to stay out of their way." Then before they could react, he turned and sprinted outside.

Alright, he wasn't dealing with it well at all. Julia followed him.

Finally, he slowed, his breath still coming in panicky gasps. "I…I shouldn't have done that."

"No, you shouldn't have, but you were upset. People react like this when they are upset."

"What do we do?"

"We stay alive and out of the way of the Fidiani. They have reason to kill us now, and they seem to like shooting anyone, reason or not. Right now, our best option seems to be to meet with Adrian Branson."

"Adrian Branson?" Blue scoffed. "You read the note. He won't 'negotiate with terrorists.'"

"There's a second note," Julia said, motioning towards the automaton of the intern. She walked forward and deposited the note.

"Hey! You!" came a call from below.

"Who's there?" Blue called.

"The Marines! Everything's gone crazy and Morgan is-" Michelle stepped into the light.

"Come on, we've got to get out of here," Julia said. They hurried up another path-this one towards the engine room.

The entire journey passed in tense silence, until the building was in sight. Softly, quietly, they slipped through the open door, into the low red lighting on the engine room. Machinery hummed, covering the majority of the building. The effect was one that induced claustrophobia, as if the walls were closing in. It didn't help that if search parties burst in, they were cornered.

Blue paced like a caged animal. Julia shuffled closer to the door. The others looked around, searching for something useful.

"So the next time we see an alien, we shoot one?" one asked.

"Can't," another replied. "I tried, they got right back up."

"What about other things?" Julia asked, her eyes fixed on something behind them. Large, thick, white plastic containers labeled, "Dangerous."

Blue followed her gaze. "That just might be crazy enough to work."

"Either way, we should get out of here. They'll search the buildings first."

Blue nodded. They gathered the two containers up, then headed out the door. They hesitated on the path for a moment, and Julia used the waning light to catch a glance at the second note from Adrain Branson:

_I will meet with the two students. Send them with the intern. -A_

"We have to get to Branson," Julia said.

"I can't go back. He'll recognize me, and…"

"We could disguise you as a student…" Julia trailed off. It was a long shot, and both of them knew it.

Either way, their path was decided. The entire party began making their way down the hill.

"Alright, so we'll try to test these chemicals the next time we see one of the aliens," Blue said, taking command again. "Throw it at them and shoot it. See how their skinsuits hold up to radioactive, corrosive…whatever it is."

Julia nodded, and handed off the chemicals to one of Blue's gang, someone who could actually use them. They were about half down the hill now-

"WAIT! WHO GOES THERE?"

"Lights off," Blue hissed. Everyone fumbled with their torches for a moment, then they held there breath in the blackness.

"BLUE? IS THAT YOU?"

"Back away slowly and carefully. We don't know if they're with us or against us."

"FREEZE RIGHT THERE!"

They broke off into a sprint, and behind them, the people calling gave chase. They wouldn't be able to run forever, and the others might have guns-

Blue took careful aim, then fired a shot at the bulb of someone's flashlight. Julia could hear a low swear as the road darkened, and their pursuers tripped. It sounded like Lucas. She hoped he was alright, but she couldn't risk stopping to see.

They ran back up, past the engine room, past more buildings, to hide in the brush.

For a long minute, there was just silence, as they laid on their backs, trying not to breathe. Looking at the stars. The sky was speckled with the same aloof lights as earlier that night, but it seemed so different. Closer. Closing in on them.

Footsteps thudded and lights bounced off in the distance as the search party ran past.

Silence for a beat.

Then Blue let out a shuddering breath. "Alright. That was a close one. I think I saw some kids going to the backup engine. That should be safe. Let's go."

The last thing broken on the Eden were the backup engines. Simon and Tim had been leading a group, going around and fixing everything, and the last of the kids had gathered here together to fix this. Simon was trying to get through, trying to fix it-

"Everyone back away," Tim shouted. They listened-they had learned to respect him. He was simply the best hacker there was. "Give him some space. He's as good at what he does as I am at what I do."

That quieted them all down. They looked at Simon with unbridled respect. Then they stepped back, and let him fix the machine.

Blue and the rest ran into the big group gathered, trying to fix the emergency fuel supply. The other Marines gave shouts of excitement when they saw their members amongst the kids. Julia, however, had something else on her mind-Branson. How long had it been since he sent his note? Half an hour? An hour? Longer? It felt like her chance was slipping away from her.

"I've got to go," she told Blue. "I've got to meet Branson."

"And I have to stay with my gang."

"I'll find you after," she promised. "Don't go off doing anything stupidly heroic. Don't get yourself killed trying to take down the aliens or anything. You can't-"

"I won't."

"Stay safe."

"You too."

Then she turned and left, and forced herself not to look back.

His eyes followed her, though. Not that either of them knew, but it would be the last time he ever saw her.


	4. Chapter 4

hello don't own okay read story.

* * *

There were a myriad of students heading down the hill back towards the main buildings. Julia searched the heads for Conor, Conor or Shaina, one of the alien siblings that would prove beyond _doubt_ that aliens were real.

But they were not among the students.

She felt a pang of regret-she hoped they hadn't been caught. But she would need someone else, someone who Branson would believe…

"Tate! Tate Branson!" she shouted. The relief was palpable in her voice.

He turned, searching for the source of his name.

"Tate, your father likes you, right? He would believe you!"

"Believe me?"

"The fate of humanity rests in our ability to convince your father that homicidal aliens have taken over his ship. Do you think he would listen to you? Or would he think you were crazy?"

Tate just sighed and shrugged. "I don't think he would believe me. He doesn't like me that much. He pretty much just ignored me. He's home maybe…once every two months? And my mother has hidden in the basement my entire life. I'm really not that close to either of my parents."

Julia bit her lip. She was getting desperate here. "Yes, but he wouldn't shoot you, right? I would be less likely to be threatened with a gun if I showed up with you, right?"

Tate shrugged again.

"Alright, thanks anyways."

"I could still-"

"It's fine." She would just go alone. Right now, delivering the message was the most important thing. And for that, she needed to find the intern.

She burst into the control room to see that Drake had taken charge again in the absence of Blue's Marines. No one had been in the hallway, or the lounge. "You. Have you seen the intern?" she demanded.

"What?"

"Automaton, grey jumpsuit, short red hair. The intern. I need to find her, she can take me to Adrian Branson."

"What?"

Julia gave him a one-over. She had said *two* students in the note-assuming that she could either bring one of the Sindi aliens to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life, or Blue, who also knew what was going on. Would it be weird if only one showed up? Branson might be suspicious. Even subconsciously suspicious. And that might be enough to kill her case. Drake was smart and she didn't have time to find anyone else. "Come with me," she said, sweeping into the lounge room and cafeteria space. She peered at the occupants again, noticed the intern sitting on a bench there.

"What is going on?" he asked, following her.

"We are convincing Adrain Branson to warn the rest of the human race that the Findiani are coming, while trying to avoid the mercenaries hunting the Sindi."

"What?"

Julia sighed. "The Fidiani fleet are going to invade planet earth, recruit everyone 'strong,' and kill everyone else. Their war machine is the best in the galaxy. And no one is going to believe a bunch of kids or a rag-tag gang of criminals. They will, however, believe one of the three most powerful men on the planet. Thus we need to convince Adrian Branson if we want to survive."

"Wait, are there aliens or something?"

Julia squelched the urge to facepalm. "I thought you were supposed to be *smart_.*_ Keep up. The woman who shot you in the knee? She's an alien. And her race is trying to wipe out the human race as they conquer the galaxy. But you don't have to know any of this, you just have to stay silent and let me do the talking."

Drake nodded.

"Hey! You! Is that useful!"

Julia whirled around to see Morgan shouting at the intern. "Nope, just an old used toolbox," she called back. Morgan turned away without even bothering to acknowledge her. But Julia didn't have time to sigh in relief. "Quick, get a scan of that woman's DNA," she ordered Drake.

"What? Is she an alien?"

"Scan. _Now._"

Drake obeyed, then his eyes popped out of his head as he looked at the reading.

"That's...that's...that's not human."

"Of course not. Get with the program."

"But it's...the combination, it's..."

"She's from a race that conquers and takes in new races all the time. She's probably a hodge-podge."

Drake swallowed, and nodded.

"Now come on. You see why we have to convince Branson?"

He silently fell back into step, following her and the intern as she led them to a small building to the side of the control room. The intern knocked, standing at the fogged window for a moment, then swiped a blue keycard.

Then the two kids stepped in to meet perhaps the most powerful man on earth. Well, in space. The sentiment still remained.

He was...shorter than she expected. Curly long blonde hair (reminiscent of Tate's) pulled back into a ponytail. Blue eyes behind clear glasses. He was wearing a faded green-gold and tan suit. All in all, the only thing that distinguished him as someone with power were the lines of tension all over his body-his shoulders, his arms, his wringing hands, his face.

This was her chance to make a good first impression. This was her chance to save humanity. She just hoped she wouldn't mess it up.

* * *

Kellen sighed. Everything had gone crazy. Blue had run off. Half the gang had left. Some of the kids were running around the space station. Lots of them, though, like her, just didn't see point. So she lounged around in the cafeteria, waiting for someone to tell her what to do.

Then Mckenzie walked through the door.

Kellen's eyes went wide. Was she back? Like the mechanic before? She rushed over. "Are you alright? What happened?" she asked excitedly. "How'd you get back?"

Mckenzie just stared at her silently.

Of course. She was just another automaton. She couldn't speak.

They could still communicate, though. Handing over her device, she asked again, "Why are you here?"

_The computer sent me back._ Mckenzie wrote.

"Why?"

_To say goodbye._

"Why?"

_Because I love him._

Kellen just stared at the Device for a moment, heartbroken. Because she loved her. Because she had been so nasty for six months. Because everything-_everything_-had gone wrong. She had lost everything.

But she pulled herself together. "Good luck," she said softly, "and tell Asa I'm sorry."

It was a command. So the body that had once been Mckenzie marched stiffly over to where Asa was.

"I love you," she said, but it was too late. Mckenzie was gone. Admitting it helped no one.

She tried to distract herself, asking around if the latest problem had been fixed yet, but no one would answer. She paced around. She wanted to get out of here, wanted to do something, wanted to fix something…Then, suddenly, she noticed that Asa was on the move. Coming towards her, with Mckenzie in tow. The expression on his face…

"I'm sorry," she said.

He slammed his fist into the wall a mere foot from her head.

"I'm sorry!" she squealed. "Please. Please. I'm so sorry and…and…"

Then he sighed. "It's okay. I believe you."

Then the three of them walked back to a table together, to wait.

* * *

Adrian Branson just sort of stood there, staring at them. So Julia took the initiative. "Hello. My name is Habana, Julia Habana. Top of the class at Zwei Academy. This is my friend Drake, who goes to Berkeley High."

"You're the negotiators."

"We're the messengers," she said coldly.

"Then tell me what the hell is going on in my ship." His voice was hard-hard enough to elicit a twinge of fear in her stomach. She ignored it.

"Well, sir, the first trouble came with the teleportation in. We were intercepted by an armed group-a gang that called themselves the Marines, who decided to take over the ship as a new place for humanity to live, free from corporations and corrupt politics."

Branson swore. Something about idealism and idiocy.

"Quite frankly, sir, they were the least of our problems. And they kept us safe and inside while they attempted to fix your space station. It seemed like a good idea to cooperate with the guys with the guns."

Branson nodded.

"But we have an even bigger problem. There are aliens on this ship-they call themselves Fidiani. They are the advance guard to a fleet that will arrive in about a year-"

Suddenly, there was a cry from the corner. A woman in a gorgeous golden dress and white cloak was sobbing on the ground. Her skin was a kaliadescope of colors; she didn't look…human. "You have to be strong, my dear," Branson said.

Julia decided to ignore the exchange and continue. "We have one year to prepare before the Fifth Fleet arrives. Right now, there are Fidiani armed and hunting down students. Quite a few have been killed, and have come back as strange…automatons. All of this, however, is secondary to the fact that Earth is going to be imminently besieged. We were hoping that you could warn the planet for us, given that Earth isn't going to believe a bunch of kids and some criminals with guns."

Branson put his head in his hands and started crying. "I can't believe it. We were too late. It's all my-"

Crying.

He was crying.

Of all the things she had seen tonight, this was the most ludicrous. Adrian Branson, one of the most powerful men on the planet, hiding away in a corner and _crying._

She couldn't take it. It was just too much.

"Excuse me! Sir! Get your act together!" Julia remonstrated. Her eyes bulged slightly with anger. Branson looked up in shock. No one talked to him that way. "Yeah, there are high school kids out there dying. But there are high school kids out there who fixed your station, have been dealing with the aliens, and are trying to save the human race. What gives you the right to hide here and blubber in a corner?"

The alien-woman stood at that and walked over to Branson and stared down at Julia, proud and strong, and just a little bit haughty. "Oh, child," she said. You have no idea."

"Then explain it to me," Julia demanded indignantly. She could have been stomping her foot, for as childish as she felt, but she was angry. Angry enough that she didn't care. "We have a right to know what we're dying for."

Branson stared at her with a crestfallen pain in his eyes-the burden of the death of children on his shoulders. "Because it's all my fault."

"How so?"

"I brought you all up here to show off the best of humanity." The best of humanity. It hit Julia like a blow. She was far from a good person. Not that she was bad. Just…selfish. But she certainly wasn't the best of humanity.

"None of this was supposed to happen. I thought we had more _time…_" He trailed off, biting his lip, then turned to the alien woman in the corner. "Can you get a message to the Galactic Council now?"

"Now? How long do I have?"

"As quickly as you can make it."

The woman swallowed. "Half an hour?"

"We can hold them off that long," Julia offered. "Lead them away from the control room. They seem to be busy hunting down a pair of Sindi siblings."

There was a flash of recognition in the alien woman's eyes.

"You're the third. The third that they're looking for," Julia accused.

The woman just smiled.

And Julia realized why she looked so familiar.

It was the woman from her dreams. The beautiful woman in the flowing gown, standing on the moon. Opening her arms, welcoming Julia home.

Adrian Branson had been consorting with this alien woman, this Sindi diplomat. He had known about aliens the whole time. He had been working with them all along-which explained the automatons and the teleporters and a whole slew of other Virgin technology that didn't make sense. The question had never been about convincing Adrain Branson that aliens were real-it was figuring out what he was going to do about it.

And right now, he was scribbling furiously on a board, working with another one of his technicians-Jeff?-glancing down every so often at Drake's DNA readings.

Julia took a deep breath. Adrian Branson was conspiring with aliens. It was far from the most world-shattering revelation of the evening. She stepped over to offer what knowledge she had picked up.

"Do you know what sort of technology they're using?" Branson asked. "Because there's a possibility…I could bring them back…"

"The male Fidiani, Deckard, was shot in the head, but fully regenerated," she explained. "He said he was wearing a Mach Three Skinsuit."

"Mach Three!" Branson cried, punching his fist straight up. "That would do it!" He glanced down again at the DNA reading, then sighed. "It's not enough. I'll need a piece of it. An actual piece. Then I could reverse-engineer it to properly heal them all, and attach their souls back to their bodies."

The automatons. He was offering to bring their automaton friends back.

"You need a piece of their skinsuit? Good. I'll get Blue on it."

"Blue? The fucking hippies trying to take over my ship?"

Julia knew she was treading on thin ice. She had to appear impartial. "Quite frankly, sir, the hippies have _guns._ They have a better chance of capturing one of these aliens than any of the rest of us. And we all want the same thing here-the survival of humanity."

Adrian grunted indiscriminately and waved his hand at her. She had given all that she could, and was now being dismissed.

"Good. We won't return unless absolutely necessary, because we don't want to lead the aliens to this room."

Adrian nodded. "Of course not."

"Goodbye, sir," she said, grabbing Drake and pulling him away from the board and out the door again.

* * *

Adrain slumped down in his chair the moment they left-it was draining, draining to deal with these spacekids, draining to have to hold himself together, draining to have to try to fix this. He was overwhelmed. But he didn't have time to be tired. His work was far from over.

"We've got another," Jeff said. "Dante Koros. Sixteen years old."

Adrian began hooking up the alien tech. This time. The fit was always hard, but he could, he could-

"Hello. Can you speak?" he asked.

Koros's body just stared at him blankly.

Another automaton.

He had failed again.

"I'm sorry-" he began, then he noticed Koros staring at his board. "Um, write whatever you wish to communicate."

_Fix me,_ Koros wrote.

"I can't," Adrian said.

_Fix me. _The rest was implied, and Adrian could read it with his mind's eye: _Fix me properly. I am a person, not a robot. I can think. I can feel. I refuse to accept this. Fix me properly._

"I-" His voice broke. "I'm sorry, I can't. Not yet. Go out and keep your friends safe."

And he could feel the accusing eyes on his back as the child's legs forced him to the door, forced him to follow all orders given to him


	5. Chapter 5

Short chapter; really, this and the prior one could combine. Either way.

* * *

"Alright. We have to find Blue," Julia said. Drake nodded mutely. "Well? Any idea where he might be?"

"Um, check the control room? It's right here."

"Alright." They broke off into a run, around the main buildings, in, through the hallway, through the cafeteria, bursting into the control room-

Julia's eyes tearing around, searching, desperately-

then they landed on him. Blue, Michelle, and one more kid, slumped in a corner.

"Blue!" Julia cried, rushing to his side. For a terrible moment, her stomach disappear and her head hot and fuzzy.

Then he groaned, and his head turned towards her.

The relief made her giddy, but not enough to stop her in her tracks. She knelt beside him.

"Are you okay?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, she felt stupid. "Of course not. What happened? Where were you hurt? What-"

"The chemicals."

Julia nodded. Of course. Although it did pique your curiosity. "Did you see if they worked? Did you take down a Fidiani?"

He groaned in pain and she pursed her lips. "The chemicals. Where did they get you?"

"Eyes."

"Lungs," Michelle added.

"Everywhere."

Julia bit her lip, thinking fast. Possible radiation, she had to get it into his bloodstream, she didn't have much time-

"Drake!" she shouted.

"Behind you," came the reply.

"Do you know the equations for the cancer cure? Back when it was combatting chemo. The bloodborn radiation combatting program."

"Yes, but-"

"On your Device. Now. Start programming," she commanded. She fumbled with her vial of nanotech, glancing nervously a him. "Got it?"

"Got it," he confirmed.

"Download the program."

He pressed a few buttons. "Sent."

Julia turned to Blue. "I've got to get this into your bloodstream. It will combat the radiation, buy you some time." She had never done such slapdash medical treatment, but there was no _time._ She sucked in a breath. "Does anyone have a knife?"

Michelle fumbled for one, handing it over.

"Give me your arm. This will probably hurt. So you'll know you're not dead."

Blue obeyed.

Then despite the fact that every instinct in her body screamed against it, she slid the sharp edge of the knife across his wrist, applying enough pressure to slip it open. The blood oozed up immediately.

She poured the nanos in, pressing down hard. "You have to keep pressure on it," she said. "A lot of pressure. I've programmed the nanos to target the radiation, so they're not going to heal the cut. You need to keep pressure on it so you don't bleed them out."

She turned to the second Marine, who mumbled something about helping Michelle first. Julia ignored his and applied the nanos.

There were barely any left by the time she got to Michelle. Still, she applied the same, hoping. Michelle went straight into convulsions.

"No," Blue said weakly, nudging the Marine woman next to him. "No, you can't close your eyes. You have to stay awake."

Julia caught on. "Stay awake. Talk to me. Tell me a story."

"I…um, I lead a gang, and, um…"

"Just keep talking. Childhood pets, favorite novel. Just keep talking. What's your favorite color?"

"Blue, I guess. You know. 'Cause of my name."

"Mine too. I mean blue. Is my favorite color, I mean. Not my name. It used to be purple, but…" She trailed off, trying to hold back tears. "Oh, Blue, you have to be okay. You have to stay with me."

* * *

"Teleporters! Teleporters! Come on! The teleporters are up!" someone yelled. Asa and Kellen looked at one another, then stood together.

"So we're going to go?"

"Nothing but death in this place anyways."

Asa glanced around, his eyes landing on a pair of beat sticks. He snatched them up. They could always use the extra protection. Then they hurried out with the rest of the stragglers, running up towards the pavilion where the nightmare of the night began.

Outside, it was chaos. Darkness, automatons wandering around, people screaming, Marines with guns, mercenaries with guns, inmates-

They ducked back inside to the control room, looking for the map.

A rope bridge. It was just across a rope bridge.

They rushed back outside. "THE TELEPORTERS! THE TELEPORTERS HAVE BEEN FIXED!" somebody shouted.

So the ran-down the length of the buildings, over the the rope bridge, across it over the dark waters of the artificial lake. It swung worrisomely, but they made it across.

Then someone snatched Kellen from behind.

She glanced around-Mckenzie had been grabbed, too, and was standing like a statue. She tried to scream.

"Let us on the teleporters," shouted a voice from behind her, the voice of her kidnapper, "or we'll kill these kids."

_Crack._

The sound of bones breaking as a beatstick connected solidly with flesh rang out.

"Let those girls go," Asa said, grinning and raising the beatstick again.

The mercenaries took a step back.

Asa flew at them, swinging the beatstick savagely. One doesn't spend six months in jail without learning a few tricks to survive.

The mercenaries stumbled away, then the woman pulled out a gun.

Pointed it at him.

Pulled the trigger.

Then as he crumpled to the ground, clutching his chest in surprise, as the mercenaries sprinted away.

* * *

Someone barged into the room. This time, though, it wasn't a ghostly opening and closing of a door. Jeff could solidly appearate most anywhere in the system.

Julia went giddy with relief. "Jeff!" she shouted, signaling him over.

He hurried to her side.

"Nanotech. Do you have any?"

He took out a huge vial. "Adrian sends his best."

She was trembling now. "Will it combat the effects of radioactive chemicals?"

"Preprogrammed. Just twist the left button twice."

Julia did, then turned to Blue. "Alright."

He grinned. "Probably going to hurt?"

"Means that you're alive." Then she injected him with a full portion.

Instantly, his body stiffened, his jaw locked, and she stared at him, feeling just as tense, until he let out a sigh and his body relaxed.

Julia smiled and quickly injected his two Marines with a dose. She turned to hand it back to Jeff, but he shook his head. She would be in amongst the students soon, and they would need it more.

Blue, meanwhile, now that he was no longer on the brink of death, was getting antsy. "Any news from Adrian Branson?" he asked.

"He still needs a piece of the Fidiani skinsuits."

Julia glanced at Blue. "Well, we're in no condition to-"

"Tell him we'll get it," he cut in. Julia started to protest, but he cut her off with a quick shake of the head. "We've still got weapons, and we know how to use them. Anyone else would be slaughtered."

Another figure flickered into existence out of the floor in front of them. "Message from Adrian Branson. You have to stop the students from teleporting."

"What?" Julia asked. "We're trying to get-" She glanced at Blue. He was in no condition to go chasing after the Fidiani, despite what he said. What would he do? Shoot via sound? He was more likely to hurt a bystander. Or rather, get himself killed before he could shoot. Which meant the question was, would Branson have a direction for them that would appeal to Blue more than a kamikaze mission to take down the Fidiani?

"The students. They are attempting to teleport off the space station. With no receiving teleporters, the coordinates will set at random and throw them into deep space, and they will all die."

Saving everyone. Appealing to his moral side, his heroic side. She turned to him. If this wouldn't work-

"Stop the kids, got it," Blue said.

She sighed in relief. Telling kids to wait. That couldn't be too dangerous, could it?

There was something else bugging her, though. Julia couldn't stop staring at the figure, though. How it had popped out of the floor."So you're-"

"Yes. I am the first artificial intelligence. I call myself Liebe." The entire projection wavered a bit, reminding the two that he was just that-another strange part of the Eden systems.

"Could you-Jeff!"

Jeff turned and strode over. "Yes?"

"Tell Branson we're stopping the kids. Blue can't go after the Fidiani yet, his eyes are hurt." Then her eyes fell on his arm. His _cybernetic_ arm.

Almost as if he could read what she was thinking, Blue asked, "Wait, Jeff. Do you think it would be possible to build me a pair of cybernetic eyes?"

"I don't have the time now. But later? Easily."

"Easily. Alright." Blue smiled again, a shadow of the confident grin he had sported earlier in the night, but more himself. "Let's go stop those kids."

Julia linked her arms with him. "Let's go."

And with careful whispers of doors and steps and ditches, they hurried up towards the teleporters. A race against the clock.

And it was unthinkable if they lost.

* * *

Kellen shrieked, leaping forward. She grabbed his hand. "Asa, you're going to be okay. Look at me. Listen. I promise. Everything is fine. You're going to *live*."

He just smiled his same calming, assuring smile up at her.

She took a deep breath. This wouldn't be a repeat of earlier. She had the time.

She peered down and examined his wound. It had pieced the lower lung. No major arteries, nothing. It wouldn't be fatal for a while. Just a simple wound.

Carefully, she began applying nanotech to the intermost edges, smoothing it over. Her hands only shook slightly. After the sanguine flow turned to a trickle, she poured the rest of the entire bottle in. They didn't have time to wait. The pre-teleportation lights were already flashing.

"You're going to live," she whispered again.

* * *

Khravha stared at the Fidiani mercenaries. He was cornered, good and proper.

So this was it. At least his sister had escaped, he supposed. It had been a good run. Hiding out at this tiny backwater in the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm. The "humans," as they called themselves, couldn't even travel faster than light yet. Their entire civilization was…violent. Mercurial. Cruel. Distasteful. Crude.

Much like the Fidiani, actually.

Although these strange humans. None of them were quite _evil._ They all had seeds of goodness. Blue and his gang, trying to protect him. Keeping his sister safe. Fighting the Fidiani, despite the hopelessness of the situation, because it was the "right" thing to do. So no, the humans weren't hopeless. There was potential.

He could see why the Sindi had been so torn about them. Why the Diplomat would come, would put pieces of her soul into their children. Humanity was capable of both great and terrible things. Kindness and cruelty in each of them. Quite frankly, it was a bit overwhelming on their planet. All of their heads screaming a thousand different stories.

But that was the downside of being a psychic of unmatched power. Besides a lot of political influence in the High Council, it meant a lot of headaches on crowded planets. And that you would be highly sought-after in the less pleasant parts of the galaxy. When the Fidiana-a terrifying warlike race of reptilians from near the galactic center-attacked Dhrassa, the rest of his family-cluster was wiped out and he and his sibling-prime, Slintha, were solve as slaves to a rich Gurga called Lord Grans.

The next few years passed in misery. No one, but especially not one of the most cultured and civilized races in the galaxy, enjoys being treated as _pets._

So he had been escaped. He had busted his sister out of there, too, and they had been on the run from Grans' bounty hunters ever since. And it had ended up with them in these uncomfortable second-rate skinsuits, ones that gave them blue rashes on their hands and necks, and stuck pretending to be…_human._

And it hadn't been much fun at all. Their psychic powers and the proximity of the humans gave them constant headaches. Slintha didn't understand the concept of "lying low," in that she would run off to do wild things, like that human thing called "kissing." He kept trying to warn her that they didn't understand the culture well enough and shouldn't stand out, but she never listened.

Well, that had worked out well enough. The few humans he knew-Drake, an excellent programmer, a nice kid; Julia, the pilot-girl who wanted to get off the planet nearly as much as he did; Blue, the leader of the gang; Amy, their friend, who found them and didn't betray them-they were all running off doing other things. He hoped they had his sister. That they would keep her safe. Because the game was up.

The Fidiani mercenary prodded him with the gun again. And Khravha sighed. If he were returned to Lord Grans, there was no question that life would get a lot more miserable. But he had no weapon, no means of escape, nothing but…

But his tongue, his brian, and his ability to subtly influence them.

"You really don't want to take me to Lord Grans for the bounty," he began.

"Oh yes we do. Don't go trying that on us," the Fidiani replied gruffly.

Khravha laughed. "I'm not trying to control you. I'm just telling you the truth. I lived in Lord Grans' station for years, and I know his head. He's a miser. He wouldn't pay you the bounty. He'd take me back, and let you go with nothing. And sure, you could fight your way in and claim your money. But that's not going to do anything for you. The loss is too great, the cost is too great. Really, it's not in your interest at all to return me."

"I'm listening."

And now the careful application of pressure with his mind, very slight, very subtle. Just to be a tad bit more receptive-"Grans ignored me for years. I was underfoot, treated like dirt. But I also learned all the station like the back of my hand. The secret passageways, the patterns of the guards. I knew it well enough to escape. And well enough to break back in."

"So you're proposing…"

"A heist. Or rather, instead of giving me away like idiots, I can get you in to claim your just reward. And then you could sell me back to him, to boot."

He could feel the Fidiani's brain, calculating, weighing his words with…respect? Fascinating. Until finally: "Yes."

And so he began to plan again. The heist itself would be easy enough to pull. But if he could make it go wrong in exactly the _right_ place, it would be a perfect time to escape. And this time, he didn't have his sister to keep alive. He could come back, pick her up, and they could go back to some respectable planet, live their lives in peace. If he got lucky, and Lord Grans got killed in the scrimmage, then he would be free. No more running. They could do whatever they wanted. Maybe even represent the earthlings, if they still wanted to join Galactic Society.

And so silently, he submitted to being handcuffed up by the Fidiani. They could tie these ungainly limbs (he was used to semi-plasma triangular gliders, and had never really cared for being bipedal), but they couldn't chain his mind.

And with his mind, he'd be free.

* * *

Slintha glanced around the woods nervously. She had had quite a few close encounters with the Fidiani that night-including a time one had asked to see her hand, and she had to flat-out mentally manipulate him to turn away so that she could run-but she had managed to stay free.

Her sibling-prime?

No.

She had seen him with the Fidiani, leading them away from the large party of kids, away from her. Now she was away from everyone, had hidden from everyone, except-

"Adam, I think I've found her!" Amy whispered. She and Keith were fighting through the underbrush.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, Eve. Oh, hi, Shaina!" Keith said.

"Adam and Eve?" she asked. Did the humans usually change their names? Why?

"It's a human mythology story," Keith explained. "Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden. We figured, since we were staying here…"

_More like Adrian and Evyna,_ Slintha thought. "So you're here?"

"We love each other," Amy said, "and Eden is fully functional now. Why shouldn't we live here?"

"Also, I'm tired of being pushed around by all the other kids," Keith said. Especially his brother, he thought.

So they had been separated from the others, and had nowhere else to go. They had probably been searching for someone, anyone, for some time.

The silence began to stretch awkwardly.

"So where's-"

"He was captured," Slintha explained quietly.

"Oh." Amy put an arm around her shoulder. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to save him," Slintha said, and in that moment, she knew it was true. Khravha had always protected her, and looked out for her. Now it was her turn. She would be the strong one. She would leave this world behind, but her friends would come with her, they'd have an adventure in the stars, save her brother, right her wrong-

"_We're_ going to save him," Keith said, and Slintha smiled. She knew she could count on them.

Kellen let out a sigh of relief. Asa wasn't going into convulsions. He was going to be okay.

"Here, let's get you up-" She hoisted him back to his feet. "Still have to make it to the teleporters."

They began trudging back up the hill. Five more meters. They were so close. Then back to Earth, back to safety, back to-

The lights began flashing with great intensity. The final countdown. "TEN, NINE, EIGHT-"

They ran.


	6. Chapter 6

Aaand last official chapter. Woop de do!

* * *

Tessa Branson was a fourteen-year-old hero.

It had only taken this crazy fiasco in the space station to prove it.

As the daughter of Sam Branson, everyone had heard of her. Who wouldn't? She was a propaganda tool for the rising Oudeteran Church. Dressed up, made up, stuck in front of cameras, told to smile, and told what to say. Behind the scenes, her father spoiled her terribly, taking her skydiving, on crazy backpacking trips, and so on.

Between all this, though, she didn't really know who she was. She was on the mission because she was sort of a badass, a rough-and-tumble girl, trained by the best martial artists that money could buy. She wanted to be in control. She wanted to step out of her father's shadow, step out of the Church's shadow, make her own name. She had to pull it off. She had to prove herself.

Especially for herself.

She _had_ to be more than what they all thought of her. She was _not_ their puppet.

Which meant that when things had gone wrong, she had reacted accordingly. She hadn't been too distraught over Apollo's death, had organized her friends, especially Dante, in completing their mission. Eden still needed to come down. Although she talked them into fixing life support; this shouldn't be a suicide mission.

But after all the excitement of running around trying to fix things, and learning that they didn't really have any of the skills necessary to fix anything, people with guns had approached them, ripped off their gloves, and checked their hands for blue rashes of something. Hypothermia, as if. She stayed away from the two weird kids that actually had blue on their hands-Conor and Shaina.

Things had gone downhill, though, because the gang had taken over the control room. She quickly volunteered to help them out, throwing around her name-Tess _Branson_-like a badge. She and Dante had been dragged around for a while as hostages, and some of the Oudeterans tried to pull off a rescue mission, and Jenna got herself shot.

Oh, god, she hoped Jenna had managed to find some nanos. She had seen Jenna again later, so she guessed it had all worked out. Even though Jenna hadn't remembered getting shot. But she had bigger problems to worry about.

Her captors hadn't know why the dead were coming back to life, and they wouldn't reveal anything about the people with blue hands. Blue, blue, blue. She felt like it was all she was hearing about tonight.

She had run around with them, acting as their insurance in case of some counterattack from Virgin, as they fixed everything except the teleporters. Then, back at the main buildings, all hell broke loose. Zephyr tried to lead a rescue attempt, and she had gotten some guns, and in the confusion, Tess got dragged away and Dante was shot.

Locked in the control room, she found her cousin, Tate. She broke down crying. Everyone had been killed. Eden was falling because of them. She was in over her head.

And he just smiled, and nodded, and hugged her, like he had known all along, and he was fine with it. He had that weird way of looking at people, but seeing right through them.

Well, she had gotten ahold of herself. Pulled herself back together. Started gathering information. At one point, the door opened, and she could see Dante, which meant the dead were coming back to life.

She briefly considered killing herself to figure out what was happening to all of them, but decided it would be a bad idea. Too many things could go wrong.

And besides, something was going on. Blue said something, there was chaos, none of the doors were guarded. She slipped outside, ran around-towards the telepads, which were getting fixed, towards anyone who knew her-

then Dante. She ran into Dante.

And he was broken. He couldn't speak.

He explained via halting communications on her touchscreen Device that there were aliens, alien technology was going down. It was happening in Branson's office. And she could go there. She could ask her uncle what was happening. Save her friend.

Be a hero.

That was all she wanted, right?

So when Blue's crazy hacker had broke her arm, she hadn't stopped. This was her mission. This was her choice. She was doing this because she wanted to, because it was the right thing to do, because she _could._

She was a hero. She was her own person, and she was a hero.

So she gathered her courage then burst in through the door.

* * *

Adrian collapsed into a chair, dropping his head into his hands.

Binding souls back into people? It was a messy business. And despite the fact that he had been trying so, so hard, every dead body that showed up at the Processing Center, he was reminded of his failure. His responsibility.

It wasn't necessarily a death, he reminded himself. The Mach 3 skinsuits. He could fix it, just…

"We've got another body!" Jeff called.

Adrian hurried over. "Who?"

"Tim Andrews. Hacker. He's in Blue's gang."

Adrian started hooking up the alien tech again, talking half to himself. "I'm so sorry. I fucked up. This is all my fault. I can…I can at least put your soul back in your-"

"Bullshit," Tim Andrews said.

Adrian froze. "What did you say?"

"I said bullshit. You. Are. Shitting. Us. I don't accept that."

"You have no idea-"

"I have every idea. Where were you when the kids were getting shot? Where were you when aliens infiltrated our ranks? Aliens that you knew about. You could have saved a lot of lives by coming out. By telling us what was going on. But no. You're a failure, sitting around in your little tower, while people are _DYING OUT THERE!_"

"I don't-"

"NO! SHUT UP, YOU ASSHOLE! YOU'RE USELESS. YOU'RE USELESS, AND WHILE YOU'VE BEEN SITTING AROUND AND PITYING YOURSELF, PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DYING."

Adrain took a step back, because he was right.

"I'm-"

"NO YOU'RE NOT SORRY. SHUT UP, AND FIX ME." Tim took a breath, and lost some of his steam. "If you wanted to make it right, you would fix me."

"Fine. You're good at progamming?"

Tim raised an eyebrow. He had been the one to hack the teleporters. He had been the one who fixed everything. Was he _good_? Yeah. Yeah he was good.

"Here are my notes on the souls and what we're doing. See what you can do with them."

Tim went to the board, studied it for a moment. "Could you reverse-oscialte-"

"Would cause a power diferential-"

"Not if you switched this input here, put it on half."

"Then you wouldn't have enough to-"

"No, you wouldn't need as much. Slip the soul in, instead of force it in."

"But you need to simultaneously heal the body as you bind it."

That stumped Tim. "None of your technology seems to have any sort of encasing functions."

Adrian sighed. Back where they had started. "I need a Fidiani Mach-3 skinsuit. Scan one, and that should give you the information."

Then Tim was gone, from the room, hurrying to scan the thing.

Adrain closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get a rest before dealing with all the bodies that the conveyer belt had brought in.

"Back."

He whirled around, and there was Tim Andrews, triumphantly holding his Device. "I glanced at the scans, you're right, this is just what we need."

"Are you sure?" Adrian asked, stepping up to his side.

"See right here. It's the missing link. It would bind the soul fully."

"But the skinsuits are designed to heal wounds, to contain the soul, not to rebind it. The fact that the body was already dead is going to undermine-"

"But even if it's temporary, we could use this here to build a bigger version of the mechanism, do it properly. Nanos can re-heal the body, you just have to add more power."

Adrian raised an eyebrow. "More power now?"

"We can do this. We can fully rebind a soul with this tech, and do it properly."

"Alright. But the data isn't enough. I need a piece."

Tim Andrews grinned. "There's a downed Fidiani right outside."

Adrian Branson grabbed his shotgun and followed him. Not that Branson was a violent man, or even knew how to use a shotgun. He had gotten it after Blue began sending notes; there was no way he was going to let Blue into his office if he were unarmed.

He hesitated at the door, though. The Fidiani was still alive and kicking, and he didn't want to-there were too many things-he couldn't afford to-

he wasn't a hero. He was scared.

* * *

Tess burst into a quite tense scene. Uncle Adrian was shouting at Blue's hacker from the door. She cleared her throat, ready to get his attention-

but a cool hand on her shoulder stopped her.

She turned around, too see a woman. A beautiful woman in flowing gold and white, and large, kind eyes.

The woman from her dreams. But who-

"Evyna," the woman answered, as if she could read her mind. This 'Evyna' grabbed both of her arms. Tess winced, and Evyna looked down. "Are you hurt?" she asked.

"It's not important," Tess said. "My friend is dead. Well, he was. He…he was broken. He couldn't talk, and I have to-"

"You are important. You are so very important. So special." Tess opened her mouth to protest, but Evyna's eyes paralyzed her. She could only listen as the alien woman spoke. "Look at you. You're hurt, you're tired, your arm is broken. You're a mess. And you're still trying to help your friend."

Tess furrowed her brow. "Well, yes-"

"That is the kindest, most selfless thing. To put aside your own pain. And I'm going to ask you to do something even harder. To put aside your mission for the moment, to trust that we'll take care of it, and to take up a much harder burden."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Galactic Council has been watching humanity for a century, and the time has come to make their decision. They've seen a lot of your faults-World War I, World War II, the Cold War, terrorism, fascism, genocide-it was a century of great and terrible things. But there is goodness in you. That's why I came. That's why I placed pieces of my soul in children-in you. That's why you dreamed about me. That's why I need you."

She laid a hand on Tess's chest, and Tess could feel the rise of something warm to match it. She swallowed. "What can I do?"

"We have no time. The Fidiani are coming. I am going to speak to the Galactic Council. I have a lot of record of what it means to be human-Jenna's memories, Simon's, many. But if you would come and speak…"

Speaking in front of the Galactic Council. Representing all of humanity. And no pressure, but aliens were coming to invade, so this was their last hope.

"I can do it," Tess said, sort of feeling out of her body. "I'm scared, but I can do it."

Evyna smiled with those deep, deep eyes, and said, "I know." Then hand it hand, they stepped into Evyna's personal long-distance teleporter and disappeared.

* * *

The lights flashed with a head-wretching intensity. "FIVE, FOUR, THREE-"

Asa, Mckenzie, and skidded into the teleporter square.

"TWO, ONE."

Then the world disappeared and a sick feeling filled their stomachs as the strange technology activated.

* * *

Tim Andrews staggered back in the door, clutching a severed Fidiani finger.

"There. Get to work, now," Adrian ordered.

Because behind him was the rest of the Fidiani.

And she wanted her finger back.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Branson determined. This was his office, his space station, his children, his fucking _planet,_ and he was _not_ going to give it up without a fight.

The Fidiani just smiled, as if she could see what he was thinking, and it amused her. She was bloody, and unarmed, and yet she still managed to make him feel like he was the one in danger for his life.

"Get out of my office," Branson said, the deceptive calm in his voice betrayed by the fury in his eyes.

"No."

"You can't be here. Get. Out."

The Fidiani's grin widened. "Got gonna happen."

"Get out or I blow your brains out." At this close of a range, he couldn't miss.

"Go ahead," the Fidiani snarled. _Try. See what happens,_ implied.

"Last chance. Get the fuck out."

"No."

His finger twitched.

_BANG._

* * *

They burst into the empty field, but the pavilion was silent. The machines cooled down. Everyone was gone.

They had teleported away.

Drake instantly held his Device up to the machines, collecting the data of the last teleportation. Checking for an end receiver…not that he wanted to go back to the planet. Next space ship he came across, he was 'jacking, and going off to have a space adventure. The Galactic Community wouldn't know what hit them.

The others stepped back in silence. It really hit them. They had failed. They weren't fast enough. Had fifty kids just teleported into deep space? Would they have been deposited, screaming, or would they never have known that those breaths had been their last?

"Wait," Blue whispered. "Can you hear that?"

The others quieted. There was the trickling of water, from Eden's aquatic systems, off to the left, but….

But a low humming from the sky.

"A rescue ship," Michelle breathed.

A rescue ship. Which meant there had been receivers, the kids didn't all die, there was hope for them. There was hope for all of them.

They moved to the side, towards the edge of the field, in clear view of the teleporters, overlooking the main buildings below. They didn't know who was coming. Quite frankly, they didn't care. The silence stretched on, underscored by the approaching engines of the rescue ship.

There was nothing to do but wait.

"The stars look so beautiful from here," Michelle said.

Julia squeezed Blue's hand. "I promise you'll be able to see them again."

It was still chilly, but nowhere near as cold as it had been when heat systems were broken. They huddled closely for warmth and support. The full implications of the night were just beginning to sink in. They had seen their friends die. They had nearly died themselves. The Fidiani were coming.

…and they were the last people on this space station. As in Blue had accomplished his goal, by default of simply being the last man standing.

So they just stood there, hearing the engines growing louder and louder as the rescue ship arrived.


	7. Chapter 7

Epilogue.

[A Snatch of Silent Scenes.]

_**1 second.**_

The gun kicks back, punching Branson in the shoulder, but the Fidiani goes down.

_**1 minute.**_

BANG.

Branson pulls the trigger again. He's getting more and more used to this.

The Fidiani smiles grimly, then gets up again. Her skinsuit protects her. She can keep doing this all day.

And every shot means a step closer.

_**10 minutes.**_

The SWAT team makes it into the Processing Room, Branson's office, to find a gaggle of extremely enraged Fidiani.

They don't last ten seconds.

_**1 hour.**_

Branson pokes his head out of the control room, where he, Jeff, and Tim barricaded themselves. The good news is, he thinks he's managed to reverse-engineer the technology.

The bad news is, the Fidiani are…

Scratch that, it's good news. They aren't trying to kill him anymore. They had regrouped, gotten their alien, and booked it. Although there were a lot of corpses in his office. Again.

Tiredly, he gathers up his equipment and notes, and starts lugging it towards the teleporters. There would be automatons on the rescue ship that needed his help.

_**1 day.**_

Julia and Blue poke their heads out of hiding. When the SWATs arrives, it was just as they feared-they would be carted away with no chance to explain.

But even as they scrambled to the side...

Meanwhile, planetside, Adrian Branson scrambles to cover up everything, keep the kids in one place, waiting, not even daring to hope, to hear from Evyna again.

_**1 week.**_

Adrian Branson receives two notes, both of which he decides please him. (Although the first, he has to calm down for a while before he realizes that it is really for the best.)

_Adrian Branson,_

_ Blue and his Marines have taken possession of your space station. There are several other students, completely uninvolved, who are also wandering around up here. Given that we control the teleporters, and that Eden was made to be entire self-sufficient, we are in the position of completely controlling your ship._

_ We have contacted you to apologize. The entire goal of stealing the Eden seems a bit petty in the face of the impending invasion of the Fidiani fleets. We would like to humbly offer all of our services, anything we can do to assist you in your greater scheme of saving humanity. We are very, very sorry, and we want to help._

_ We have a proposition for you. Of course, if you have other plans, we are more than happy to cooperate. An imminent alien invasion can be a bit of a humbling discovery. However, given the inevitability of the invasion, we feel like starting an evacuation might be a good plan. You could use the Eden either as a colony to send off to preserve humanity and culture, or as a base for teleportation for other ships._

_ We look forward to hearing from you and we hope that we can put aside our differences and work together for the good of the race._

_Sincerely,_

_Julia Habana_

_Zwei Academy, Class of 2031_

Their cheek. Even when they were surrendering. But the second note makes him so happy that he does not care.

_Adrian, dear-_

_The Galactic Council has agreed to help. I should arrive back on earth soon._

_Love,_

_Evyna_

_**1 month**_**.**

The evacuation program is in full swing. All of the spacechildren are gathered in Eden. Millions are flowing through it every day, through the teleporters, to stations that the Galactic Council set up.

Conspiracy theorists start talking. However, there are big political figures who get behind Branson, like Alexandra Sorren. So governments don't comment (not that they can do anything, although the Chinese are threatening), and slowly but surely, people disappear. Some of them the best of humanity. Some of them Branson's acquaintances. Some of them because they can pay. Some of them just arbitrarily.

They take pictures, memories, then they head off to a trail with no end through the cold, dark space.

_**1 year.**_

The Fidiani fleet arrives at the planet Earth, to find it billions strong, and theirs for the taking.

So they take it.

And the last free humans, a million light years away, watch in silence on their screens as the planet burns.

Eyes blink. Hazel eyes. Brown eyes. Green eyes. Blue LED eyes.

A hand snakes into another, an arm around a shoulder, offering silent support. Keith and Amy. Tess and Dante. Evyna and Adrian. Kellen, Mckenzie, and Asa. Julia and Blue


End file.
